For a decade, BETTER FINANCE has flagged the persistently low real returns in EU long-term and pension savings. As government and occupational pensions dwindle, Public Authorities urge earlier and increased savings for retirement. Yet, this advice often disregards a fundamental issue: inadequate, sometimes negative, long-term real returns after inflation. BETTER FINANCE reports disprove the claim
The recent ARTE documentary titled “The Future of our Pensions” explores how to make the EU pensions system more effective at providing adequate returns. This in-depth feature examines pension systems throughout the European Union and includes interviews with policymakers, scholars, stakeholders, and retirees to provide a comprehensive look at the current state of pensions in
The European Commission published a legislative proposal for a regulation on European green bonds, which is supposed to become the high quality voluntary European Green Bond Standard. Its intention is to use the potential of the single market for achieving the EU’s climate and environmental goals in a more efficient way.
It is part of an initiative first mooted in the Commission’s September 2020 Capital Markets Union Action Plan and designed, among other things, to “increase consumer participation in capital markets.” The the level of retail investor participation in EU capital markets remains very low. The strategy is aimed to ease difficulties for retail investors in
Eurozone inflation mushroomed from 3.4% to 10% in one year, further deepening Europe’s cost-of-living crisis, yet the best the European Central Bank (ECB) could muster is a late and timid hike of interest rate from 0 to 0.75%. Financial repression policies in place since the crises of 2008 and 2009 are being tightened further in
For 10 years now BETTER FINANCE points to the often-poor real net returns of long-term and pension savings (see the 2022 Edition of the Real Return) across a large number of EU jurisdictions. It is getting worse, and while a couple of years of poor performances can be made up for, the same can’t be
Read the full article [in French] in ARCAF’s website Over the years, BETTER FINANCE has warned authorities and stakeholders of the risks at stakes for Pension plan savers (Pension Savings – The Real Return). Today, the French ‘Union Mutualiste Retraite’ (UMR) just sparked a new pension scandal by cutting the pensions paid to ‘Corem’ retirees.
On 25 September 2020, BETTER FINANCE released the eighth edition of its research report on the Real Return of Long-Term and Pension Savings. More than a month later, on 5 November, PensionsEurope (PE), the lobbyist for the European Pensions Industry, issued a press release levelling unwarranted and unsubstantiated criticism against the findings in the Bulgarian
[A provisional version of the publication was available in January 2024. The document has been updated to the final March 2024 version] The report by CFA Institute and BETTER FINANCE critically reviews the EU’s listing rules, targeting reforms to improve public market accessibility for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It aims to foster debate amidst
BETTER FINANCE welcomes the horizontal and vertical dimensions represented in the objectives of the taxonomy. Furthermore, we would like to suggest expanding the horizontal dimension based on the promotion of gender equality which should not be based only on the gender pay gap but also on freedom of expression, assembly, etc.
BETTER FINANCE believes that the European Commission should not further diminish the ambition of ESRS. At the very least, there should be a set of mandatory disclosure requirements (such as GHG emissions) irrespective of materiality assessments made by companies.