Angelos Gregoriades, President of the Cyprus Funds Association (CIFA), spoke at The Cyprus Headquartering and Funds Summit in Tel Aviv, on May 6, about CIFA’s success in joining the International Funds Association.
“The remarkable development of the Cyprus Funds Industry as an Alternative Fund jurisdiction within the EU,” said Gregoriades, “was also recognized by EFAMA who decided to hold their last event being the Annual General Meeting in Limassol last June with the participation of delegates that represented 28 member states and over 60 international corporate members of the Association whereas, last week, CIFA’s application to join the International Investment Funds Association has been approved at their Board meeting held in Washington D.C.”
Angelos Gregoriades also pointed out that in Cyprus, the Funds sector has become the most dynamic area within the Cyprus financial services sector “having seen a formidable growth momentum with assets under management more than doubling in the past two years whilst more than 30 funds are now listed on the Thomson Reuters funds platform and soon onto Clearstream whilst Bloomberg will soon allow Cyprus registered funds be accessible and more visible on their platform.”
Although various challenges still lie ahead in relation to the Funds industry, Gregoriades underlined that despite these challenges, Cyprus is becoming at a fast rate an alternative hub for asset management activities. “With our experience in serving high net worth individuals our industry could develop into something larger, that is to be an alternative hub for private wealth management that sets international standards for both service and innovation resulting to the attraction of significant assets from across the world,” Gregoriades said.
He added that “to achieve this upscale, we are also currently addressing a range of issues including recommendations for implementing a new strategy for the Cypriot Stock Exchange so as to become a regional player.”
