Date: 24th January 2019
Author: BETTER FINANCE

Long-term retail savings are the only EU consumer products for which consumers and Public Supervisors not only don’t have a clue as to their future performance, but they don’t even know what their past performance has been.

On 10 January 2019, following a 2015 request by BETTER FINANCE , the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) finally released reports on costs and past performance of long-term and pension savings products sold or marketed in the EU. BETTER FINANCE welcomes this first step in the right direction and sympathises with some of the challenges encountered by the ESAs concerning data availability. However, the reports fall short of meeting their objective and of fulfilling the European Commission’s request. This situation raises questions about the fulfilment of the investor and consumer protection mandate of the European Authorities.