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There are differences between intermediated or “packaged” investments (life insurance, funds, savings plans, etc.) and direct investments in capital markets (ETFs, bonds, shares). Several independent studies indicate that the higher the annual fees, the lower the average medium and long-term returns of investment products. Annual fees for intermediated products are much higher than those for direct savings in securities.   The impact of these fees in France has been especially significant for certain insurance

Original article in L’Echo Over the years BETTER FINANCE (Pension Savings – The Real Return) has warned authorities and stakeholders of the damage caused by excessive fees to the returns on long-term and pension savings in Europe. Last July, BETTER FINANCE was joined by the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) that warned investors

On 3 April the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its final guidelines on performance fees in investment funds, applicable to Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) and certain types of Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). These guidelines aim to provide rules for fund managers when charging performance fees to retail investors as

Despite a 10-year bull market both for European equities and bonds, the outlook for European pension savers remains bleak. Whereas returns have improved in recent years, the Better Finance study, Pension savings: the real return, once again shows that most long-term pension savings products did not, on average, return anything close to those of capital markets.

Among other topics, the latest newsletter of POLITICO discusses the clash of fund managers and consumer groups on fees and responses to ESMA’s Consultation Paper on Guidelines on Performance Fees in UCITS. BETTER FINANCE, as a representative of financial services users, was quoted in the newsletter: “It falls under the fair treatment of investors to penalize the

BETTER FINANCE welcomes the recent efforts of ESMA to clarify and harmonise across the EU the provisions and supervisory practices on the management and transparency of information concerning UCITS and AIF funds, and in particular the current proposal to codify uniform rules applicable to performance fees. As a representative of retail investors (among others), BETTER FINANCE

For the seventh year in a row, BETTER FINANCE embarked on the herculean task of gathering all the data on private pensions in 17 EU Member States and published its annual report on the real net returns of long-term and retirement savings in Europe. Despite the fact that the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) have a

Shortly after its release, the new research by BETTER FINANCE on the Correlation between Costs and Performance of EU Retail Equity Funds has been picked up by media outlets across  Europe. The study is based on a very large sample of funds  (1,970 active funds), with BETTER FINANCE covering equity funds domiciled in France, Luxembourg

Daniel Brocklebank, UK director of Orbis Investments, warned the audience at the 72nd CFA Institute Annual Conference: Bad incentives lead to bad results, particularly when it comes to investment management. With that in mind, Brocklebank suggested that it was worth considering incentives, especially since they affect asset manager behaviour. According to him, while management fees

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is considering either banning or capping exit fees charged by investment platforms. Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA noted that even though the platform market is working well, it needs to be less expensive and time-consuming. According to him, restricting exit fees would make it

BETTER FINANCE is pleased to announce that, after nearly 10 years at BETTER FINANCE, Arnaud Houdmont is taking on more responsibilities as Director of Communications. In his new role as Spokesperson for BETTER FINANCE, Arnaud will make sure the voice of all European citizens as savers, investors and financial services users, is heard loud and

European Retirement Week 2022 will take place from 28 November through to 3 December 2022. The group of stakeholders behind the initiative jointly promote the two main goals of European Retirement Week: raising awareness of the pension challenge, and serving as a platform for stakeholders and policymakers to discuss possible solutions to ensure that people

Savers and individual investors are one of the most vulnerable groups of consumers due to the nature of financial markets, the limited financial literacy of households and the growing complexity of investment services and products. When breaches of consumer rights occur in this sector, losses are high and usually difficult to compensate. BETTER FINANCE’s research

BETTER FINANCE publishes the fifth annual edition of its research into Robo Advisors following mystery-shopping covering 13 Europe-based platforms and 4 non-European ones. The Robo Advice sector continues to grow and is well-placed to provide a range of benefits for individual investors, such as considerably lower fees, better accessibility and availability, and more “independent” advice,

With merely 22 active funds, of which just a handful are marketed and distributed to individual, non-professional (“retail”) investors, the EU Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIF) market is still struggling to develop more than five years after its launch. The uptake of ELTIFs by investors is hampered by similar but more attractive domestic labels, a lack

PEPP only called into question by finance industry due to high costs for intermediaries 22 September 2020 – The latest draft of the Pan-European Personal Pension (PEPP) delegated (level 2) regulation was up for discussion last Friday during a broad and well-attended conference on the issue of PEPP and Financial Repression organised by consumer organisations

Back in November 2017 we formed an Alliance to voice our disappointment with the European Commission’s proposal for the review of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), and to make proposals to remedy the situation. The Alliance reiterated its main concerns in a joint statement in July 2018, following the report on the review by the

Brussels, 31 July 2020 – On 24 July 2020, the European Commission (EC) announced the “Capital Markets Recovery Package”, as part of the its overall coronavirus recovery strategy, aimed at making it easier for capital markets to support European businesses in their recovery from the fallout from the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. To this end the

The European federation of retail investors, BETTER FINANCE, has criticised the new composition of stakeholder groups at the European supervisory authorities, branding it “a step backwards with regard to a balanced representation between industry and consumers in EU financial rulemaking.” Read the full article here.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has published the new list of members of its Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG). The selected individuals begin a four-year term on 1 July 2020. The SMSG will provide ESMA with advice on its policy work and must be consulted on technical

First proposed in 2014 by the European Commission, the revised Shareholders’ Rights Directive (2007/36/EC) was adopted on the 14 of March 2017 by the European Parliament.  As pointed out by the European Commission in its press release, this revision is aimed at “ contributing to the long-term sustainability of the EU companies; enhance the efficiency

An individual investor might be worried about the funds he picks or about his assets manager, but according to the theory called “behaviour gap”, the investor should first be worried about…himself. This tendency for investors to underperform the funds they are invested in is called the “behaviour gap”.  The following hypothesis illustrates this theory: •

Whereas the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) have a legal duty to collect, analyse and report data on “consumer trends” in their respective fields, the unfortunate reality is that long-term and pension savings remain one of the few retail services where neither the customers nor the public supervisors are properly informed about the real net performance

Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank, agreed to pay $9.3 billion to settle a lawsuit arising out of troubled mortgage-backed securities it cobbled together and sold to several federal housing agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The settlement, announced on Wednesday, includes $6.3 billion in cash and $3.2 billion in securities that Bank

On April 1st, a group of major institutional investors, including the Head of Corporate Governance Group at BETTER FINANCE’s member organization UKSA (the UK Shareholders’ Association) Roger Collinge, sent a letter to the Financial Times editor welcoming “the rivals to the Big Four”. Following Interserve’s replacement of its long-standing auditor Deloitte with Grant Thornton, the letter stresses that thisdecision is a “sign of increasing competition

In an ideal world there would be no “inducements”, and product providers would definitely not be paying commissions – whether directly or indirectly- to so-called “advisors”. But we are not in an ideal world, we are in the real world. In the real Continental European world, ESMA’s proposal 10i for MiFID II implementation1 looks like a further boost to

Last week, the center-right and the center-left in the European Parliament reached a preliminary agreement aimed at allowing the EU to force large banks to split their investment banking operations from their traditional activities. Despite strong lobbying from the financial industry, EU regulators took a step forward and the deal could be turned into law.

A study commissioned and released by the European Green Party shows that Europe’s largest banks are recipients of “implicit subsidies” to the tone of 234 billion in 2012, the equivalent of more than 10% of the European GDP of that year. Banks that are deemed “too big to fail” obtained subsidies from Member states since governments are

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that pension funds can pose systemic risk to the financial system. This comes after two of the largest asset managers in the world – BlackRock and Vanguard – have spoken against the exclusion of pension funds in a consultation on institutional systemic risk between the Financial Stability Board (FSB)

The number of potential closet trackers identified by Investment Adviser research has declined substantially in the past 12 months, from 15 in 2015 to just four. Research into closet trackers has grown more popular, with Morningstar recently releasing a study of the active share of European large-cap funds between 2005 and 2015 that shows 20.2

Sdružení Českých Spotrebitelu (SCS), the Czech Consumer Association’s activities are focused on the regional dimension of security and development services in the field of consumer protection. This includes providing advice and ensuring the flow of information, but also, and especially, the development of contacts and cooperation with various stakeholders at a regional level. SCS is

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