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About Us

BETTER FINANCE, the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users, is an NGO dedicated to advocating for the rights and interests of individual investors, pension savers and financial services users.

Established in 2009 in response to the financial crisis, we unite independent non-profit organisations across Europe to ensure that financial markets operate with integrity, transparency, and accountability, always prioritising the best interests of European citizens over industry stakeholders. It is the only European-level organisation solely dedicated to representing individual investors, savers, and other financial services users.

At BETTER FINANCE, we believe the financial system should serve the real economy. Our mission is to restore trust in capital markets and to advocate for effective, no-nonsense sustainable investing, while expecting value for money and reasonable returns.

We act as an independent centre for financial expertise and advocacy for the direct benefit of European financial services users.

To address the disproportionate influence of financial institutions in the EU financial policy-making process, BETTER FINANCE undertakes the following actions:

Actively participates in EU financial policy advisory groups and processes.

Engages in campaigns that provide relevant information and enhance protection for end-users.

Promotes market integrity and transparency for individual investors and non-industry stakeholders.

Advocates for improved governance of financial supervision to benefit all European citizens.

Read Our Mission and Vision

BETTER FINANCE is a European Federation consisting of 37 member organisations across 25 countries. It directly represents approximately 4 million financial users and has operated with EU support since 2012.

Learn More About Our Organisation

History

EuroShareholders

Since 2012, BETTER FINANCE has been the successor organisation to Euroshareholders, created in 1992 in Brussels to unite associations of small shareholders across Europe.

Protecting the interests of individual shareholders is at the core of BETTER FINANCE’s mission. Individual share ownership plays a vital role in ensuring effective and long-term financing of the real economy and enhancing the corporate governance of listed companies in Europe. Indeed, individual shareholders are typically long-term, end-investors who bear the full risks and rewards of ownership, in contrast to “agency” owners.

Unfortunately, EU financial policies have generally not supported the development of individual share ownership, despite the 2007 Shareholders’ Rights Directive. As a result, both the number of individual shareholders and their ownership share in EU-listed companies have declined over recent decades, in favour of agency owners such as investment funds, which do not bear the direct risks and rewards of share ownership. These agency owners typically have much shorter investment horizons, as evidenced by high portfolio turnover rates, and charge fees to the beneficial owners.

BETTER FINANCE advocates for stronger protection of individual shareholders’ rights.

EuroInvestors

BETTER FINANCE was created in 2009 following the financial crisis to federate individual investor organisations across Europe, including but not limited to shareholder associations. It also advocates for investors in fixed income securities such as bonds, in investment funds, in life insurance and pension funds, as well as those investing in bank savings products.

Today, individual investors are mainly offered “packaged” products rather than securities (shares and bonds): 78% of EU households’ financial assets are held in such packaged investment products (life insurance, pension funds, bank accounts, investment funds). Since the 2008 financial crisis, new EU regulations have improved the protection of individual investors, but BETTER FINANCE believes much remains to be done to ensure consistent levels of protection, business conduct rules, and disclosure of key information.

EuroFinUse – BETTER FINANCE

At the initiative of Euroshareholders and FAIDER, the French Association for Independent Pension Savers, the European Federation of Investors was created in 2009 under the name EuroInvestors.

In 2012, the organisation changed its name from EuroInvestors to EuroFinUse – the European Federation of Financial Services Users – to better reflect its expanded scope and membership.

Since then, BETTER FINANCE has also extended its focus beyond individual share ownership and investments to other financial services users, such as savers – particularly bank savers (who hold 35% of EU households’ financial assets in bank accounts) – as well as life insurance policyholders, pension fund participants, mortgage borrowers, foreign exchange users, credit card holders, and more.

BETTER FINANCE brings its expertise in investment and financial matters to these retail financial issues and cooperates with other consumer and civil society organisations in this field.

BETTER FINANCE is an Association Sans But Lucratif registered in Belgium and is independently funded through membership fees, grants, and donations. BETTER FINANCE’s activities are partly funded by the European Union, Iceland and Liechtenstein. There is no implied endorsement by the EU or the European Commission of the work carried out by BETTER FINANCE, which remains the sole responsibility of BETTER FINANCE.

BETTER FINANCE ASBL is registered in the EU Joint Transparency Register under registration number 24633926420-79.