European public pension schemes are under great strain as a consequence of a greying population and the financial crisis. In order to address this problem, governments are looking into promoting supplementary forms of retirement income. Many issues arise from this that need to be addressed by European policy makers whose legislative decisions directly affect the
On the 24th of April 2018 Le Vif published an article outlining BETTER FINANCE`s stated concerns on poor performance of savings through retirement products, resulting from fees and taxes limiting interest rates. The article was published in light of political authorities` desire to encourage savings through such retirement products. To read full article: "L’épargne-pension ne rapporte pas
On Wednesday, September 14, the packaged retail and insurance-based investment products (PRIIPs) draft legislation, was rejected overwhelmingly by MEPs. PRIIPs was developed to help investors but MEPs declared that the draft legislation was “flawed and misleading”. PRIIPs will now be sent back for revision at the EU Commission. Whereas this delay is bad news
Investment firms charging fees for the active management of funds that in reality behave more like index trackers are coming under renewed pressure in Europe. One campaigner representing four million savers in the region has pledged to “name and shame” so-called closet-indexing funds. Guillaume Prache, the managing director of European investment lobby group BETTER FINANCE,
Juan Manuel Viver, Policy Officer at BETTER FINANCE, reacts to the launch by Lord Hill of the Green Paper on retail financial services in a video released by EU Reporter. Viver underlines the importance of turning our attention to consumers as well, since the Commission focused on stabilizing the financial sector after the crisis but
BETTER FINANCE was mentioned on the topic of closet indexing in an article by Ignites Europe, the Financial Times’supplement for the funds industry. The article reports on Luxembourg’s decision to launch a probe into closet tracking, with the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier analysing thousands of funds to uncover any misbehaviour. In a letter to ESMA in late 2014,
The EU has been working on a framework for third-pillar personal pension products (PPPs) for quite some time now. In July 2012, the Commission requested the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) to provide technical advice to develop an EU Single Market for personal pension schemes. In February 2014, EIOPA delivered a preliminary report.
In reality returns on pension savings are a lot lower How much money did you put aside for your old age? More importantly, what are the returns on that piggy bank? According to BETTER FINANCE, a European consumer organization which advocates more transparency in the financial sector, the returns are much lower than assumed… after
Following a recent position paper by EuroFinUse on Philippe Maystadt’s Draft Report on IFRS Standards, an article appeared today 9 October in Accountancy Age. The article points out to the fact that the EP’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) has concerns regarding the funding arrangements for the IASB and Efrag. MEP’s object to the
In an article published by The Financial News on Tuesday 13th of March, reporters Chris Newlands and David Ricketts tackle the "costliest scandal to hit the UK`s financial sector: the widespread mis-selling of payment protection insurance that has hamstrung the banking industry". Referring to important research conducted by BETTER FINANCE, statements made by Managing Director Guillaume Prache