In our first money-market piece we covered Xeon, which «becomes» the overnight rate via a swap. C3M gets there by the opposite road: it buys real government bills, at very short maturities, rolling them every week. Same category, opposite philosophy — with measurable differences in costs, taxes and risks. We measure them all, over nine years of data.
1. What a money-market ETF is (60-second recap)
A money-market ETF is a tool for «parking» cash: it follows the euro’s very short-term interest rates. When ECB rates rise it earns more; when they fall — or go below zero, as they did from 2015 to mid-2022 — it earns little or slowly loses. It is not a deposit account: it is an exchange-traded fund whose price moves every day — very little, but it moves. The full recap, with a yield calculator, is in our Xeon article.
2. What they are for, according to research
Academic finance has a name for very short government paper: near-money. Stefan Nagel (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2016) measured the premium the market pays for assets liquid enough to be almost cash: holders accept a slightly lower yield in exchange for the ability to exit at any time. Krishnamurthy and Vissing-Jørgensen (Journal of Political Economy, 2012) showed investors consistently pay up for the safety and liquidity of government debt. Translated from the academic: these instruments exist to store money that must stay available — not to grow it. European law says the same: EU Regulation 2017/1131 defines money-market funds as tools for «short-term liquidity management». Using them for long-term goals is a category error — true of C3M, Xeon and any money-market fund.
3. The identity card
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Amundi Euro Government Bond 0-6 M UCITS ETF Acc |
| ISIN | FR0010754200 |
| Ticker | depends on the exchange — see venues below |
| TER (management) | 0.14% — but see the costs section |
| Assets (AUM) | €0.93bn |
| Replication | Physical (actually owns the bills) |
| Securities lending | None (per prospectus) |
| Distribution | Accumulating |
| Index | FTSE Eurozone Government Bill 0-6 Month Capped |
| Launch | 22 June 2009 (French FCP) |
| Risk (SRRI) | 1 of 7 |
According to the official lists published by the brokers (downloaded and cross-checked by us), these share classes of the fund appear tradable with zero fees:
FR0010754200C3M- Directazero within the savings plan (buys)
- Finecozero on buys (single orders and savings plan) — promo list renewed monthly: check it is still listed
- Moneyfarmzero within the savings plan (buys), agreement until 15 May 2027
- Moneyfarmzero on single buys from 1,000 €, agreement until 15 May 2027
- XTBzero (up to €100,000 monthly volume, unreachable for a retail plan); fractions available in plans
Official lists verified on 23 July 2026. We record published terms — this is neither an invitation to open accounts nor a recommendation: lists change, the broker’s documents prevail. Trade Republic, Scalable Capital and Trading 212 publish no per-ISIN lists and don’t appear here.
Two rows are worth the whole article. Physical replication: C3M owns the bills, not a contract promising their return — the exact opposite of Xeon (the trade-offs of each route are explained in Physical or synthetic replication). And securities lending: none — we verified it in the prospectus («transactions involving the temporary acquisition and/or disposal of securities: none», April 2026 edition): no extra lending income, but also zero counterparty risk from that door. Live data source (NAV, assets, authorisations): Amundi’s official API, refreshed daily.
A distinction that trips up even seasoned investors: authorised does not mean listed. The fund is authorised for sale in 7 countries (the UCITS «passport»: regulatory permission to offer it to that country’s investors) but listed on just 3 exchanges — Xetra, Paris and Milan. A Finnish or Dutch investor simply buys it on one of those venues through their broker: no home listing needed. Switzerland is the special case: authorised, yes, but for institutional investors only — Swiss retail cannot buy it.
4. Inside the basket: the «T-bills» of 7 countries
The index buys bills — discount Treasury paper — issued by 7 eurozone states: France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal, each with at least two short-term investment-grade ratings. Maturities under 6 months. The «Capped» in the name is a ceiling: no issuer above 34.5% — without it, France and Italy (the largest bill issuers) would dominate. Amundi publishes the complete basket daily — 55 instruments today, each with ISIN and weight, downloadable from the fund page — and we archive it every day: its changes over time will become part of this page. Here, for readability, the country mix and the top 10 holdings:
| Country | Weight |
|---|---|
| France | 34.17% |
| Italy | 21.13% |
| Germany | 16.06% |
| Spain | 12.08% |
| Belgium | 8.61% |
| Netherlands | 6.41% |
| Portugal | 1.55% |
The technical detail that explains half the article: the index rebalances weekly (bills mature constantly and must be replaced). A physical fund tracking it must therefore trade every week. Keep that in mind: it returns in the costs section. Source: the index’s official ground rules (FTSE Russell, v3.3, May 2026 — public document).
5. Performance — and the true cost of tracking
| Year | Fund | Index | TD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | −0.72% | −0.51% | -21 bp |
| 2019 | −0.58% | −0.38% | -20 bp |
| 2020 | −0.60% | −0.47% | -14 bp |
| 2021 | −0.75% | −0.64% | -11 bp |
| 2022 | −0.46% | −0.29% | -17 bp |
| 2023 | +2.89% | +2.99% | -11 bp |
| 2024 | +3.53% | +3.65% | -12 bp |
| 2025 | +2.09% | +2.23% | -14 bp |
| 2026 · partial | +1.10% | +1.16% | -6 bp |
| Whole period (annualised) | +0.67% | +0.82% | -15 bp |
The takeaway: the KID declares ~0.25% a year in total costs (0.14 management + 0.11 estimated transactions), yet the measured fund–index gap is 15 basis points a year over 9 years — essentially the TER alone. Nobody is wrong: that is the difference between a prudent regulatory estimate and a measurement. It is also why, when comparing funds, we look at measured tracking rather than sums of declared costs.
6. Drawdown: what «losing» means for a money-market fund
Read the number for what it is: a 3.63% maximum drawdown in 9 years, built not in a crash but in a slow, years-long descent — the negative-rate era, when the whole euro money-market category lost a few tenths of a point per year by construction. It is not a C3M flaw (Xeon lived the same story): it is what happens to any cash-parking vehicle when the reference rate sits below zero. Inflation is a separate matter — it hits deposits, money funds and idle cash alike — and it lives in the «net of inflation» toggle above.
7. Taxes: where physical changes the game
This chart is why we keep a semester-by-semester archive of white-list documents: Xeon’s rate has swung between 12.87% and 15.46% across 11 semesters — the same gain sold in different semesters paid different taxes, discovered only at the moment of sale. C3M, by contrast, is fiscally predictable: physically holding government bills pins the share at 98-99%. A virtue no factsheet mentions.
8. C3M vs Xeon: head to head
| Year | C3M | XEON | gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | −0.72% | −0.48% | −24 bp |
| 2019 | −0.58% | −0.50% | −8 bp |
| 2020 | −0.60% | −0.57% | −3 bp |
| 2021 | −0.75% | −0.59% | −16 bp |
| 2022 | −0.46% | −0.03% | −43 bp |
| 2023 | +2.89% | +3.27% | −38 bp |
| 2024 | +3.53% | +3.79% | −26 bp |
| 2025 | +2.09% | +2.23% | −14 bp |
| 2026 (partial) | +1.10% | +1.08% | +2 bp |
Gross returns say: Xeon ahead, but with a narrowing gap — from +43 basis points in 2022 to +14 in 2025. Two structural reasons. First: Xeon’s index embeds a +8.5bp annual premium over €STR. Second: the two curves react to rate cycles at different speeds — the overnight adjusts instantly, 0-6 month bills price ECB moves in advance. In 2022, amid rapid hikes, overnight was the place to be; as the cycle normalises the gap shrinks. On measured costs: Xeon loses ~10bp a year to its index, C3M ~15 — a few basis points apart, not the 15 the KIDs would suggest. Net of taxes the distance narrows further, as the «what you keep» chart showed, where the sale-semester rate does the work. No verdict, then — two instruments of the same category with different profiles: minimal cost and reactivity (Xeon) versus simplicity, real ownership and tax predictability (C3M).
9. Official documents
- KID (PRIIPs) — the key document: costs, scenarios, recommended holding period (1 year)
- Prospectus — the source of the securities-lending verification (section 7)
- Index ground rules (FTSE Russell) — eligible countries, 34.5% cap, weekly rebalancing
- Amundi product page — NAV, breakdowns and monthly report (search ISIN FR0010754200 on amundietf.it)
10. In short
- What it is: eurozone government bills under 6 months, actually owned, rolled weekly. Since 2009, €0.93bn, SRRI 1.
- True cost: 0.14% TER; the KID estimates 0.25% all-in, but measured tracking says ~15bp a year.
- Taxes (Italy): 12.64% effective — and above all stable, unlike the synthetic.
- Risks: the category’s — below-zero rates = slow erosion (max drawdown 3.63% across 5 negative-rate years); no swap, no securities lending.
- Vs Xeon: slightly behind gross and catching up; nearly even net of taxes. Same category, opposite philosophies.