In its spring edition, Global Custodian published an article on how the EU is aiming at shedding a light at the calculation and measurement of investment transaction costs. EU financial regulations such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the regulation on Packaged Retail Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIPs) or the European Shareholder Rights Directive
"Pension Savings: The Real Return" was mentioned in an article in The Telegraph. The article focus on how British pensions perform "worse than in most of Europe". BETTER FINANCE’s report shows savers’ pension funds are worth 10 per cent less than in 2000 due to high charges in the UK. BETTER FINANCE, which lobbies the EU on
Guillaume Prache, Managing Director at BETTER FINANCE, was quoted in the De Tijd newspaper on the recent agreement reached by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers on MiFID II. Representing the voice of the small investors in Europe, Mr. Prache considers the Directive relative to investors "disappointing" since "the only redeeming feature is
Guillaume Prache, Managing Director of EuroFinUse, was interviewed by Financial Times for an article which alerts on the risks of one-sided financial regulations due to the huge imbalance between the resources invested by the industry and those for the representation of investor’s interest. To read the full article please click here
In february 2015, in a 18 page document called "The Union of Capital Markets: An Investor Perspective", Blackrock CEO Larry Fink`s message was clear: the EU should assess the possibility of creating a cross-border personal pension fund. With a potential 240 million European citizens reached, the EU Commission, starting efforts for such a pan-european pension
A recent conference on the role of the asset management was held at the European Parliament. Politicians and consumer rights groups offered analysis on the added value active managed funds offer investors. Sven Giegold, a Green MEP, suggested that asset management companies have over charged investors and failed to offer investors value. The consensus of
Barely a month has passed this year without a high-profile attack on the asset management industry over controversial issues such as high fees, poor investment performance, hidden charges and short-termism. The concern in the asset management industry is that the next attack will come from a source the market cannot afford to ignore: regulators. Indeed
According to Guillaume Prache, "the younger generations do not turn to their bank clerk for savings advice”. “We are witnessing the emergence of a large multifaceted consulting sector online, . Alongside the sites of the traditional players of the finance world, there are now purely online services. The rapid development of FinTech – the practice
In article published this morning, the Wall Street Journal covered BETTER FINANCE’s concerns on the performance of pension savings’ returns in the EU. The 2015 edition of our research report “Pension Savings: The Real Return”, which now covers 15 EU countries and represents 85% of the EU population, shows that “savers in [most] European countries are getting a raw
"It is mis-selling if a manager is perfectly conscious of replicating the index and then selling it to an investor as an active fund". This was how Juan Manuel Viver, Policy Officer at BETTER FINANCE, described "index huggers". Across Europe, investment funds are now being investigated for charging a higher fee for taking a more active role in