The average individual investor is overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of, and uncertainty associated with, the investment products available. Earlier this year, the European Commission released the findings of a study it commissioned on the European market for retail investment products. This should be seen in light of the continued work towards a Capital Markets
The challenge of an aging population is getting more and more acute every day. On the one hand, the European Commission states that close to one out of five people over 65 in the European Union are at risk of poverty and that women are not sufficiently protected with regard to their rights to an
European investor lobby group Better Finance has urged the European Commission to develop an ‘action plan’ to help citizens with financial matters. Presenting its sixth annual research study on pension savings earlier this month, Guillaume Prache, head of the consumer lobby, called for the Commission’s Consumer Financial Services Action Plan to be extended beyond its
Each year more than 100 billion euros are invested in life insurance, which remains the most popular placement among wealthier people who are not concerned about fees charged on their investment. However, for the less wealthy, it remains an expensive placement, becoming even more expensive each year, since returns continue to decrease. It turns out
The outlook for European pension savers is bleak in spite of a six-year bull market for European equities and bonds, investor lobby group Better Finance has said. Europe’s pension savings gap surpasses €2 trillion a year, or around 13% of Europe’s GDP, according to research carried out by Better Finance. The non-governmental organisation (NGO) added
Last week, IPE (Investment & Pensions Europe) published an article on the variety of responses to the EU’s proposed pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP). In a response to BETTER FINANCE’s calls for policy makers writing the PEPP rulebook to include protection against inflation in real terms, both the Committee for Internal Market and Consumer Protection
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
The effects of the 2008 financial crisis were supported by European citizens in their double quality as depositors and taxpayers. The overhaul of the banking sector (see article here) put mechanisms for prudential oversight and crisis resolution in place. Just one piece of legislation remains to be added to the European Single Rulebook: the European
To achieve a fully-fledged Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the E.U. must complete the Banking Union (BU) based on a harmonised, risk-sharing banking services sector. The last step remaining is the establishment of a European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS, see here). A complete overhaul of the field is hard to obtain since a system resilient
In November 2015, the European Commission (EC) proposed a regulation for a common system within the Single Market to guarantee savings in case of a bank defaults. This system, the European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS), is meant to complement the common banking supervision mechanism and the centralised bank resolution authority and constitutes the third pillar