iShares MSCI All Country Asia ex Japan ETF – US4642881829
For the purposes of the ISA regulations, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are treated as collective investment schemes. As no such schemes are authorised by the FCA in the UK, only non-UK domiciled ETFs can qualify for ISA inclusion. Schemes must either be EEA based UCITS compliant schemes which are recognised by the FCA under section 236A FSMA 2000 and admitted to the FCA’s Temporary Marketing Permissions Regime (TMPR) or EEA/non-EEA schemes which are recognised under sections 270/272 FSMA 2000.
US ETFs (in theory) could potentially qualify for ISA inclusion if the fund had been recognised by the FCA under section 272 FSMA 2000 could meet the definition of a non-UCTS retail scheme. So that is the theory but the fact that we have never seen a recognised US/Canadian fund suggests that there may be some reason why, in reality, US/ Canadian based funds ISN’T able to acquire the necessary recognised status from the FCA.
Some fund providers offer both US and European domiciled ETFs and whereas the US ETFs won’t normally be ISA qualifying, the European ETFs may (and usually do) qualify for ISA inclusion as they meet the ‘recognised UCITS’.
The actual listing/trading or companies comprising the ETFs for ISA purposes, is irrelevant. It will need to be on the FCA register (i.e.. be FCA recognised) to qualify for ISA purposes.
This US ETF isn’t on the FCA register, so not ISA qualifying (again not surprised as it’s a US ETF).