Regulators are planning to hit nine of the biggest insurance companies with new safety rules which are tougher than the industry expected. The proposals are estimated to increase the capital requirements for unexpected losses by 10 percent on average. Insurers have attacked the plans of the G20’s Financial Stability Board, which oversees the new regime
DSW, the German association for private investors and BETTER FINANCE member, requested a special audit for Deutsche Bank in court. Marc Tüngler, general manager of DSW, explained that they gave Deutsche Bank the chance to voluntarily appoint an auditor, but they now deemed it necessary to involve the court since their request wasn’t met with
German institutions are allocating increasing amounts of money towards investment in real estate and equity. Since peaking in 2013 at 80%, allocations to fixed income have steadily declined and reached 74% at the time of writing. In a Greenwich Associates report, a German public pension fund was quoted saying: “The low interest rate environment makes
On July 8 the European Parliament voted in favour of the proposal to revise the Shareholders Rights Directive, published in April 2014 by the European Commission. Early May, the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee (JURI Committee) had already backed amended rules by a narrow vote of 13 to 11. However, considerable differences among European Parliament’s political groups resulted in the rapporteur, MEP
BETTER FINANCE believes that the CMU is about attracting household savings to put them to work for the long term financing of the European economy. Therefore, we invited several high-level speakers to share their views and discuss the concept of this initiative at our international conference on the 6th of May. In his speech, Commissioner
At the informal Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) meeting held on 23-25 April in Riga, Latvia, the European finance ministers discussed the plan for a capital markets union (CMU) for the first time. The ministers gave a strong support to the European Commission’s proposal that would boost economic growth by giving companies wider access
On 18 March 2015, the European Commission has outlined its ‘Tax Transparency Package’. The package includes a legislative proposal introducing the automatic exchange of information between Member States on their tax rulings and a communication outlining a number of other initiatives to advance the tax transparency agenda in the EU in order to fight tax evasion
BETTER FINANCE shares its first thoughts on the long-waited Green Paper on Building a Capital Markets Union (CMU), published by the European Commission last week. We welcome the initiative and fully agree that “capital markets need to play a larger role in channeling financing to the economy” but our concern lies with the lack of attention
Two finance ministers, France’s Michel Sapin and Austria’s Hans-Jörg Schelling, issued a joint plea to nine other finance ministers who had – back in 2013 – agreed to proceed with the tax. With this letter they “hope to breathe new life into talks on the FTT”. The financial transaction tax has been described as a
Jonathan Hill, Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union proposes to dispose of three major pieces of financial legislation in the institutional pipeline. Background: Shortly after the new composition of the Commission had been confirmed, Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s Vice-President responsible for “Better Regulation”, asked all Commissioners to inform him about