MAKING THE MOST OF UCITS IV

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crucial to avoid heavy taxation of investors. You will also have to comply with specific EU rules such as the Savings directive, which requires paying agents making cross-border interest payments to EU individuals to obtain and verify certain information about those individuals and either to report information about the in- terest payments to their domestic tax authorities or levy withholding taxes, depending on jurisdictions. In this framework, a Taxable Income per Share (TIS), corresponding to the taxable value of each share for EUSD purposes in the event of a sale or redemption payment, and a Taxable Income at Distribution (TID), corresponding to the taxable por- tion of each distribution for EU Savings Directive purposes, will have to be calculated and published via financial data providers or local finan- cial newspapers when foreign funds are distributed to individuals in Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg or Switzerland. The EU Savings Directive application proves particularly burdensome for UCITS as fund Manage- ment Companies are responsible for accurate TIS and TID calculations for the various jurisdictions. • Are you aware of the local post-registration requirements in your target countries of distribution? • Have you checked that your fund administrator has an adequate infrastructure and cross-border experience to satisfy local needs (e.g.German and Austrian tax reporting)?

OPERATIONAL ASPECTS You should not ignore that in a cross-border environment, operational complexity will be exacerbated, due in particular to various time zones and languages, manual processes, lack of standardisation and difficulties for investors to access reliable and updated information. From a transfer agency prospective, experience of non-domestic investors will also be required, as well as the ability to be connected to the major fund distribution platforms such as NSCC inAmerica,AllFunds in Spain, etc. Besides, you will also have to deal with the increasing complexity of your distribution networks, which will make the identification of your distribu- tors, the monitoring of their activity per country and the trailer fee mana- gement much more difficult than in a pure domestic environment. The cross-border registration and distribution of your funds will inevitably require a broad expertise and a more sophisticated approach. Benefiting from the assistance of a versatile service provider (transfer agent, fund administration, distribution support) sufficiently experienced in the cross- border environment, with specialist capabilities and having a thorough knowledge of the specificities of the main countries of distribution of UCITS will be a key success factor to help you seize the new business development opportunities you have identified beyond your domestic borders.

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CACEIS - UCITS IV |  page 41