What is the legal status of money held in a research payment account (RPA) established under Article 13(1)(b) of the MiFID II Delegated Directive, prior to it being used to pay providers for research?

Answer 2

Under Article 13 of the MiFID II Delegated Directive, where an investment firm chooses to use an RPA, this must be funded by a research charge to the client.

The nature of this deduction as a charge means that once it is deducted from a client, the funds belong to the firm. However, this research fund should be managed in an RPA controlled by the investment firm and it should be used specifically for purchasing external research to benefit the client. ESMA is of the opinion that it is important that the investment firm makes its best efforts to align as much as possible the timing of the charges paid by the client to the firm, and the expenditure on research paid from the RPA by the firm to the research provider.

The obligation on the investment firm to have a process by which it can rebate surplus funds if it underspends the original research budget for a set of portfolios under Article 13(5) of the MiFID II Delegated Directive [Or offset it against the research budget and charge calculated for the following period] does not alter the status of RPA money. Only when a rebate has been made into a client’s account would it be considered as client assets.