Earlier this year BETTER FINANCE congratulated EIOPA – The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority – for its successful efforts in striking a balance in its Insurance and Pensions Stakeholder Groups (IRSG and OPSG) between the number of industry representatives and representatives from civil society. With five user-side expert members in the EIOPA Stakeholder Groups
BETTER FINANCE has been monitoring the performance of EU pension and long-term savings since 2013, with its 6th edition of the “The Real Return” by now covering 16 countries and over 85% of the EU population. Unfortunately, the dire state of pension savings across the EU has not improved much over the years. Despite a
According to research carried out by Morningstar aimed at comparing the performance of active funds with that of index trackers and passive funds over 10 years, managers have consistently failed to beat their benchmarks. In fact, most active fund managers on average outperformed their passive counterparts in just two of the 49 categories taken into
The US-American authorities Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) have investigated cars from Volkswagen AG and found that, among others, certain US emission standards have been violated. Emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in engines of certain Volkswagen cars have been found to exceed EPA standards by a factor of up to
BETTER FINANCE wishes to stress that providing EU citizens with a really safe PEPP is critical for their future pension adequacy. It is happy to see that the MEPs approved some of the improvements for pension savers it has been supporting, such as: the collective redress provision, the right for independent saver associations to subscribe
In comparison to men, women save more for their future through pension savings. Last year, 84% of women saved towards a workplace pension pot. This is a fairly large increase in comparison to 2007, where just 63% of women who did the same. This increase is in part thanks to an auto-enrollment system in the
As we’ve emphasized in the past, BETTER FINANCE believes that the concept of sustainable finance should translate into products that are exemplary in complying with EU investor protection rules (especially in terms of transparency on performance). BETTER FINANCE is pleased to see that an emerging trend in socially-responsible investors wanting to make sound financial decisions
In 2016, BETTER FINANCE joined the The Stichting Volkswagen Investors’ Claim in order to help investors obtain redress for “Dieselgate” scandal (information can be found here) Now, time has come for high-ranking Volkswagen executives to testify in court in a case concerning the stock market fray between Volkswagen’s biggest shareholders. A German court will begin hearing
Turns out it pays to be consciously-minded! In a survey of 650 institutions from around the world, ‘Schroders Institutional Investor Study 2018’ found that institutional investors who focus more on sustainability appear to be more confident in achieving their return expectations than those who do not. However, not everyone is on board with sustainability, seeing as three
Summer has come and gone but the debate surrounding the PEPP’s “capital protection” feature remains on the table. With the ECON committee voting on the PEPP Regulation around the corner, BETTER FINANCE warns one last time that true capital protection implies that the notion of “capital” must be calculated on the basis of the amounts