Financial Regulation in France stems from:

• the ‘Autorité des Marchés Financiers’ (AMF) - for financial advisers and intermediaries, and from
• the ‘’Autorité de Controle des Assurances et des Mutuelles (ACAM) - for the providers of assurance contracts.

Only the AMF is directly relevant to our activity as financial and investment consultants, advisers and intermediaries, the AMF then delegating their regulatory role to different organisations as under:

• For the act of brokerage of assurance and insurance (‘assurance’ only in French) products:
  
  This is done through the ‘Codes des Assurances’, requiring all brokers (otherwise referred to as financial intermediaries) to be registered with the assurance regulator: ‘l’Organisme pour le Registre des Intermédiaires en Assurance’ - otherwise known as ORIAS.
  
  Whilst the ‘Code des Assurances’ deals with everything to do with assurance and insurance (the French only using the term ‘assurance’), it is Section V of the code which deals with intermediaries, stating in article L.511.I that intermediation is the act of ‘… presenting, proposing, or aiding to conclude a life assurance (/insurance) contract.’
  
  
• For financial advice, other non-assurance financial products and management:
  
  This is effected through the ‘Code Monétaire et Financier’. This code delegates the regulatory activities to one of six authorised regulators, which, apart from each having a slightly differing ideology, all perform exactly the same regulatory function:
  • Association Nationale des Conseils Financiers (ANACOFI-CIF)
  • Association des Analystes Conseillers en Investissements Financiers (AACIF)
  • Compagnie des Conseils en Investissements Financiers (CCIF)
  • Chambre des Indépendants du Patrimoine (CIP)
  • Conseils en Gestion de Patrimoine Certifiés (CGPC)
  • Chambre Nationale des Conseillers en Investissements Financiers (CNCIF)allows
    
    
• The ‘Code Monétaire et Financier’ specifically confirms:
  • article L.321.1 - the code’s application, to, inter alia, the reception and transmission of orders on behalf of third parties; the execution of orders on behalf of third parties; negotiation; the financial management of third party investment portfolios; the provision of investment advice; investment into guaranteed instruments; investment into non guaranteed instruments.
  • article L.541-2 - the need for the investment adviser to be resident in France.

Accordingly, it is clear that is not possible for a practitioner to exercise as a financial adviser without being regulated by both the ‘Code des Assurance’ and the ‘Code Monétaire et Financier’.

The public can check the regulatory status of practitioners by connecting to the relevant regulator’s web site as follows:

• ORIAS - then insert the details as relevant in the column on the left
• ANACOFI - then ‘nos adherents CIF’ on the left, then insert details

The AMF web site also reproduces the complete list of all advisers regulated by any one of the six authorised professional associations under the ‘Code Monétaire et Financier’, but unfortunately the cross linking of details from the individual associations is not without some errors.

• AMF - then ‘CIF et démarchage’ on the left, then ‘fichiers de CIF/Associations agréées’, then insert details