As pointed out at several occasions by BETTER FINANCE , EU citizens as savers are by nature mostly long-term driven, evidenced by the fact that 67% of their total assets are deployed in long-term investments (versus only 37% for pension funds - despite their purely long-term horizon - and 10% or less for insurers), and their main saving goals are long-term (retirement, housing, children’s studies, transmission of wealth, etc.). For these reasons EU citizens as savers have a great need for “sustainable finance” products. Therefore, BETTER FINANCE strongly supports Actions 4 and 7 which should ensure that sustainability preferences of long-term and pension savers are taken into account in the suitability assessment. BETTER FINANCE hopes that the Action plan will also encourage the finance industry to apply ESG criteria to their own activities in particular in terms of governance and transparency (information and disclosure).
Read the full Press Release here.