Glossary — fund regulation, term by term

Every term below also appears as a hover gloss across the site (dotted underline). Terms that carry enough weight get their own page.

Term pages

• AIFM — Alternative investment fund manager — the entity responsible for a fund's portfolio and risk management under AIFMD.
• AIFMD — The EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (2011/61/EU) — the rulebook for managers of non-UCITS funds.
• AIFMD II — Directive (EU) 2024/927 — the 2024 amendment of AIFMD: loan origination, liquidity management tools, delegation, reporting.
• Annex IV — AIFMD's supervisory reporting annex — the periodic data return every AIFM files with each national regulator.
• BE-13 — The US Bureau of Economic Analysis mandatory survey of new foreign direct investment in the United States.
• CRS — Common Reporting Standard — the OECD framework for automatic exchange of financial-account information between tax authorities.
• DAC6 — The EU mandatory-disclosure regime for reportable cross-border tax arrangements, requiring intermediaries to report within 30 days of a trigger.
• depositary — The independent safekeeping-and-oversight entity every EU AIF and UCITS must appoint.
• ELTIF — European long-term investment fund — the EU wrapper with a retail marketing passport for private assets.
• FATCA — Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act — the US regime requiring financial institutions to identify and report US account holders.
• FBAR — Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts — FinCEN Form 114, a US report separate from the tax return.
• Form 1042-S — The IRS form reporting US-source income paid to foreign persons and the tax withheld on it.
• Form 1065 — Form 1065 — the US partnership tax return; a fund taxed as a partnership files it and issues a K-1 to each partner.
• Form 1099-DIV — The IRS form reporting dividends and distributions paid to US holders.
• Form ADV — The SEC registration and disclosure form for investment advisers.
• Form D — The SEC notice of an exempt securities offering under Regulation D, filed on EDGAR and public immediately.
• Form PF — The confidential SEC systemic-risk report filed by larger private-fund advisers.
• Fund Annual Return — Fund Annual Return — the annual regulatory return a Cayman fund files with CIMA alongside its audited accounts.
• ILP — Investment limited partnership — Ireland's fund partnership vehicle, overhauled in 2021 for private funds.
• ITS — Implementing technical standards — the Level 2 rules setting formats and procedures (forms, templates, processes).
• JPF — Jersey Private Fund — Jersey's lighter-touch private fund regime; 48-hour JFSC authorisation, investor cap removed August 2025.
• L-QIAIF — Loan-originating QIAIF — Ireland's pre-AIFMD II credit-fund regime, retired when the revised AIF Rulebook applied in May 2026.
• Level 2 — The technical-standards layer under an EU directive — RTS/ITS and delegated acts that carry the operational detail.
• MFAR — Mutual Fund Annual Return — the annual return a BVI fund files with the Financial Services Commission.
• N-CEN — The SEC annual census report filed by registered investment companies.
• NPPR — National private placement regime — marketing an AIF into an EU country one regulator at a time, without the passport.
• Part II UCI — A fund under Part II of Luxembourg's 2010 Law — the retail-capable AIF wrapper.
• PIF — Private investment fund — Guernsey's registered fund regime, rewritten May 2025 into the QPIF and Family PIF routes.
• QIAIF — Qualifying investor AIF — Ireland's flagship professional-investor fund; 24-hour authorisation once the AIFM is approved.
• qualified intermediary — Qualified intermediary — a non-US entity that contracts with the IRS to handle withholding and reporting on US-source income.
• RAIF — Reserved alternative investment fund — Luxembourg's AIF with no product-level CSSF approval; supervision rides on its authorised AIFM.
• RTS — Regulatory technical standards — binding detail rules drafted by ESMA and adopted by the European Commission (Level 2).
• Schedule K-1 — Schedule K-1 — the IRS statement a partnership issues to each partner showing their share of the fund's income, deductions and credits.
• SCSp — Société en commandite spéciale — Luxembourg's special limited partnership, the standard private-fund legal form.
• SFDR — The EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (2019/2088) — mandatory sustainability-risk and impact disclosures by fund managers and their products.
• SICAR — Société d'investissement en capital à risque — Luxembourg's risk-capital (private equity / venture) vehicle.
• SIF — Specialised investment fund — Luxembourg's 2007-law vehicle for well-informed investors, now framed by CSSF Circular 25/901.
• sub-threshold AIFM — An AIFM below €100m (leveraged) or €500m (unleveraged, 5-year lock-up) AuM — registration, not full authorisation.
• Taxonomy Regulation — The EU Taxonomy Regulation (2020/852) — the classification system for environmentally sustainable economic activities.
• UCITS — Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities — the EU's retail fund regime.

Quick glosses

• AuM — Assets under management.
• BEA — The US Bureau of Economic Analysis — runs the BE-13 direct-investment survey.
• BMA — The Bermuda Monetary Authority.
• BVIFARS — The BVI Financial Account Reporting System — the FSC portal for FATCA and CRS filings.
• CBI — The Central Bank of Ireland — regulator of Irish funds and fund managers.
• CIMA — The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority.
• CoBO — Control of Borrowing (Jersey) Order — the consent layer under Jersey fund law.
• CSSF — Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier — Luxembourg's financial regulator.
• CT61 — The UK return and payment for income tax a company withholds on certain interest and other annual payments, filed quarterly.
• DFSA — The Dubai Financial Services Authority — the DIFC regulator.
• DITC — Cayman's Department for International Tax Cooperation — administers CRS, FATCA and economic substance.
• dividend withholding tax — Tax a payer deducts from a dividend and remits to the tax authority on the recipient's behalf.
• eDesk — The CSSF's online filing portal.
• EDGAR — The SEC's public filing system (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval), where Form D and adviser filings are lodged.
• ESMA — The European Securities and Markets Authority — the EU-level markets supervisor that drafts the technical standards.
• FCA — The UK Financial Conduct Authority.
• FinCEN — The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — receives the FBAR (Form 114).
• FSRA — The Financial Services Regulatory Authority — the ADGM regulator.
• GFSC — The Guernsey Financial Services Commission.
• grandfathering — Transitional relief — existing funds keep running under the old rules for a defined period.
• HMRC — His Majesty's Revenue and Customs — the UK tax authority.
• IARD — Investment Adviser Registration Depository — the system an adviser files Form ADV through.
• IDES — International Data Exchange Service — the IRS system FATCA data is transmitted through.
• IRS — The US Internal Revenue Service.
• JFSC — The Jersey Financial Services Commission.
• LMT — Liquidity management tool (swing pricing, gates, side pockets…) — AIFMD II makes open-ended funds select at least two.
• ManCo — Management company — the authorised entity managing UCITS (and often AIFs too).
• MMF — Money market fund — regulated in the EU by the MMF Regulation, with its own reporting.
• NAV — Net asset value — the value of a fund's assets minus liabilities, usually per share/unit; the number an investor deals at.
• NCA — National competent authority — the member-state regulator (CSSF, Central Bank of Ireland, …).
• NURS — Non-UCITS retail scheme — a UK retail fund authorised under the FCA's COLL rules, outside the UCITS regime.
• passport — The right to market or manage across all EU member states on one home-state authorisation.
• principal adverse impact — Principal adverse impact — the harm a manager's investments do across a set of sustainability indicators, reported under SFDR.
• SEC — The US Securities and Exchange Commission.
• SRRC — The Luxembourg AML/CFT summary report of the Responsable du Contrôle, filed with the CSSF under Circular 24/854.
• taxe d'abonnement — Luxembourg's quarterly subscription tax on a fund's net assets (taxe d'abonnement).
• transposition — A member state writing an EU directive into its own national law — the directive binds governments; the national law binds you.
• Vorabpauschale — A German deemed minimum annual return on a fund holding, taxed even without a distribution and capped at the fund's actual rise in value.