On November 17, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) published a draft report on the proposed Regulation on Money Market Funds (the MMF Regulation).

Money market funds are a type of investment fund that invests in short-term debt such as money market instruments issued by banks, governments and companies (MMFs).  If adopted, the MMF Regulation will introduce a general framework of requirements to enhance the liquidity and stability of MMF funds.

The draft report sets out suggested amendments to the European Commission’s original proposal and an explanatory statement. The statement comments that:

• there is still significant scope for improvement relating to liquidity and maturity transformation and in making MMFs more stable;
• a new category of EU government constant net assets value money market fund (CNAV MMF) should be established, which would invest a majority of assets into EU government debt; and
• the net asset value of CNAVs should be subject to daily disclosure requirements, stress tests should take place on a quarterly basis and there should be stronger investor warnings.

The Parliament is scheduled to consider the MMF Regulation at its plenary session on March 25, 2015. Draft report.