The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), France’s financial markets watchdog, is preparing to clarify the remuneration rules applying to financial investment advisers, known as CIFs. The measure concerns a central aspect of savings-product distribution: the commissions, or retrocessions, paid to advisers by investment-product managers.
According to the AMF, 84% of advisers do not charge their clients directly and rely mainly on these payments. When investors subscribe to certain products, they pay entry and management fees to the managers. Part of those fees can then be transferred to partner wealth advisers who distribute the products.
The commissions must be clearly disclosed to clients and must reward an improvement in the advice or service provided. Fund managers and distributors therefore need to demonstrate that both conditions are met.
The issue gained importance after the AMF’s sanctions commission challenged several asset-management companies in late 2025. While regulators had traditionally focused on the quality of advice provided by CIFs, the commission criticised managers for failing to show that payments to distributors improved the service offered, and in some cases for not adequately informing investors that the payments existed.
The planned AMF note, first reported by the professional financial publication L’Agefi and confirmed by several sources, is expected to be published in the coming weeks. It should specify the framework under which advisers can be remunerated by the managers of products they recommend to clients.
Sources: Le Monde Économie.