The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) published a SPOT supervisory synthesis on how investment service providers take account of clients’ sustainability preferences in the investment advice process under the MiFID II sustainability-preferences framework and revised European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) guidelines. The AMF concludes that, while firms aimed to respond to expressed sustainability preferences, significant deficiencies remain in meeting applicable requirements. Between April and July 2024, the AMF reviewed five investment service providers across all steps of the advice service, from the client knowledge questionnaire through to the suitability statement. The review highlights challenges in implementing the framework, including defining sustainability preferences, availability of non-financial data, and adapting internal tools, and notes an acceleration of corrective actions and compliance work since 2024 that continued after inspection reports were issued. The AMF also sets out observed good practices (including mandatory, substantive adviser training, client-facing educational explanations in the collection tools, grouping principal adverse impacts into families, and taking a cumulative approach to sustainability criteria) and poor practices (including no final assessment following training, insufficient explanation of how qualitative thresholds translate into minimum percentages, and lack of clarity on criteria applied when assigning a generic profile to clients who do not detail sustainability preferences).
France Autorite des marches financiers 2026-02-26
French Financial Markets Authority reports significant shortcomings in firms’ incorporation of clients’ sustainability preferences in investment advice
The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) released a supervisory synthesis on investment service providers' integration of clients' sustainability preferences under MiFID II and revised ESMA guidelines. The review of five providers revealed significant deficiencies, despite efforts to address sustainability preferences. The AMF identified good practices, like mandatory adviser training, and poor practices, such as inadequate final assessments and unclear criteria for client profiling.