Seven years into the financial crisis and the question remains: are investors better protected today than they were in 2008? The European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users is particularly well placed to answer this question and provides a mixed view on the issue. With a team of five, Better Finance fights an uphill battle to be heard amongst industry heavyweights such as the European Banking Federation. Guillaume
A documentary about the fund industry called “How to Win the Loser’s Game” was produced and released last year. The author, Robin Powell, repeatedly quotes the findings of our report and shares how this document transformed his life: "I’ve never been called a Communist before, and certainly not a Jihadist. But in the last few
L’Echo has quoted BETTER FINANCE for All in its article on pension funds and their (under)performance in Belgium. The findings of our newly released report "Pension Savings: The Real Return" are contrasted with the views of the President of L’Association des Institutions de pension belges. Please find the article (in French) here and our press release
On October 4, Juan Manuel Viver, EuroFinUse’s Policy Officer, was quoted in Ignites Europe , the Financial Times supplement for the funds industry, on the KID Regulation proposal for retail investments pre-contractual disclosures. Mr Viver referred to EuroFinUse’s concerns regarding the detrimental effect that the implementation of the KID could have on UCITS’ KIID, and the
An article from the FT on the ongoing opposition to the PRIIPs KID rules reiterates the industry’s growing concerns that the disclosure requirements on costs and charges for investment products generate the opposite result of that aimed by the Regulation. Alongside voices on the professional side, Guillaume Prache – Managing Director at BETTER FINANCE –
The European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, has just ruled in favor of investors who faced expropriation during the nationalization of six Slovenian banks in 2013. BETTER FINANCE and the PanSlovenian Investors` & Shareholders` Association (VZMD), the organization that has been fighting on behalf of the investors for the past 30 months, see this decision
“It is time for regulators to investigate sales practices at banks”, says Madison Marriage, Journalist for the FT. According to Cerulli, a research company, 90 per cent of the money that entered Europe’s fund industry between 2009 and 2013 went to independent asset managers. This figure raises the disconcerting question of whether the “open architecture”
Earlier this week BETTER FINANCE wrote to MEP Brian Hayes, ECON Rapporteur for the Revision of the IORP Directive, expressing its concerns regarding the proposed amendments in the ECON Committee draft report on the IORP Directive that would constitute a very significant setback in the protection of EU savers, watering down the information that IORP
Seven years into the financial crisis and the question remains: are investors better protected today than they were in 2008? The European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users is particularly well placed to answer this question and provides a mixed view on the issue. With a team of five, Better Finance fights an uphill battle to be heard amongst industry heavyweights such as the European Banking Federation. Guillaume
"Barriers to Shareholder Engagement – A report on cross-border voting" was mentioned in a Spanish article in El Pais. The article focus on shareholders’ participation in companies in Spain and the barriers investors have to face which continue to make cross-border voting a challenge: "Costs, logistics or different requirements and national standards make it particularly difficult for individual shareholders