How do you give your board evidence that cross-border obligations are under control?

The management information required by a fund’s Board needs to evidence oversight of cross-border registrations and why producing it should take an afternoon rather than three weeks.

Boards and Conducting Officers carry ultimate responsibility for registration whether the work is delegated. Demonstrating that those obligations are under control requires evidence rather than assurance, and registration is harder to evidence. As the information is usually spread across multiple sources, including regulators and local providers in every market where the fund is registered.

In practice, a Board pack that answers four questions cleanly will do the job. One that answers none of them is narrative rather than evidence.

1. Where are we registered, and at what level?

This needs to be a matrix rather than a statement. Every fund and share class down one axis, every country across the other. Umbrella-level answers are not sufficient, because registration is frequently held at sub-fund or share class level depending on the market, the investor type, the currency and the fee structure. An umbrella-level view can show a market as registered when a particular share class within it is not.

2. What is coming, and is anything late?

A forward view of obligations by market is the piece most firms lack, and the one that most changes the character of a Board meeting, because it turns registration from a series of surprises into a plan. Some deadlines are fixed dates. Others are calculated from a fund-specific reference point such as financial year end, with an offset that differs by market and by report type. A few exist only for one fund in one market. All three need to appear in the same view, far enough ahead to act on.

3. What changed since we last met?

This question needs a view over a period rather than a snapshot. A current matrix will not tell you that share classes were registered in two markets and a sub-fund de-registered in another since the last meeting.

The GFR module in Nexus reports this at umbrella, sub fund and share class level. Registration status by country, together with changes to the regulatory status of the sub-funds and share classes over a user-definable period, exportable so it can be easily imported into the required reports. As the change record and the current position are drawn from the same data, they cannot disagree with each other. Board papers assembled from separate sources routinely do.

4. Who did the work, and can we prove it?

Oversight of a delegated function means being able to evidence the process as well as the outcome. Behind the summary reporting, each piece of registration work carries an audit trail of what was done, by whom and when. This level of detail is required when a specific question is asked about a specific filing months after the event. A Board needs summary reporting routinely, and forensic evidence occasionally.

Delegation does not transfer accountability

Appointing a registration agent moves the work, not the responsibility. The fund and its Board remain accountable for the fund being properly registered in every market where it is marketed, which means the evidence you receive matters as much as the filings that are made. When assessing a registration partner, it is worth asking what you would be able to produce for your board without having to request it.

Key takeaway: Oversight is demonstrated through four artefacts. A current registration position at share class level, a forward view of obligations by market, a record of what changed in the period, and the ability to evidence an individual filing on request.

Ready to strengthen your board reporting?

Speak to our Registration and Filing expert about the reporting you would receive, and what your board would be able to produce without asking anyone.