EU regulators have been given an end of January deadline by the European Commission's financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness to come to an agreement about the overhaul of PRIIPs rules, the Financial Times has reported.

McGuinness (pictured) has written to the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA), the European Securities and Markets Authority and the European Banking Authority setting a deadline of 29 January, according to the FT.

This means that all three bodies have until then to agree the regulatory technical standards (RTS) that cover how projections for future returns and costs are presented to retail investors.

According to the FT, in her letter McGuinness said that the Commission was ready to "take all necessary steps".

She wrote: "As the work is technically finalised, I trust that national competent authorities will be able to overcome the difficulties and will adopt the draft amending RTS."

EFAMA is concerned about the timing, given that at the end of this year, the exemption granted to mutual funds regarding these reporting requirements will expire.

It also voiced concerns that the commission could introduce additional changes without allowing enough time for further consultation between fund managers and policymakers

Andreas Stepnitzka, senior regulatory policy adviser at Efama told the FT that the timing was "awfully tight".

Stepnitzka said: "Will fund managers have enough time to implement the revised rules into UCITS key investor documents? We would prefer that the Commission would agree to another extension of the UCITS exemption for a further 12 months (until January 2023)."

PRIIPs, which was published in 2018 and ensures retail investment product providers publish future performance predictions based on a range of scenarios under different market conditions, was shown to be flawed during the market sell-off in March 2020 triggered by covid-19.

According to research by Schroders, seen by the FT in June last year, investors received lower returns than predicted in their funds' long-term performance forecasts as a result of the sell-off.

A version of this article was first published by our sister title Investment Week