In response to the final report from the High-level Expert Group (HLEG) on Sustainable Finance, published in late January of this year, Dutch and German pension fund representatives as well as European-wide representative association PensionsEurope warn against a “one-size-fits all” approach. The report is set to be the building block on which the EC will
The European Banking Authority published its first report on financial education on Thursday 1 March, providing National Supervisory Authorities (NSAs) across the EU with an opportunity to share and compare experiences in terms of financial education. With the increasingly complex nature of financial services and investment tools, there is no question that educational initiatives for
Emerging Financial Technology (Fintech) has a, seemingly endless, potential to drive efficiency gains and the disintermediation of financial services, thereby bringing about decreased transaction costs. Keeping in mind that Fintech so far remains relatively unchartered territory, regulatory measures and their effects on the future development of the industry make for heated discussions. Currently, as stated
It is for this reason that BETTER FINANCE welcomes the proposal released by the European Commission in mid-2017 for the creation of a pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP) that will go a long way towards alleviating this worrying situation, provided the PEPP ensures pension adequacy through decent long-term returns and a default investment option that
Inspired to some extent from BETTER FINANCE’s 2017 Briefing Paper on mis-selling of financial products as well as its study into the issue of Closet Indexing at the beginning of the year, the European Parliament’s ECON committee has now commissioned studie into the mis-selling of financial products to European individual investors, looking at how and
Virtual Currencies (VCs) and blockchain technology are all the buzz, with their regulation now subject to national as well as international discussions. Following the ESAs warning on VC trading earlier this month (access BETTER FINANCE`s article here), a Roundtable led by European Commission VP Valdis Dombrovskis, in charge of financial stability, financial services and the
At the beginning of February 2018, in support of the Capital Markets Union initiative, the European Commission released a Code of Conduct on Withholding Tax (WHT) aimed at reducing barriers hampering cross-border investments for investors by reducing the double taxation whereby the investor is taxed both at the source of the dividend as well as
One of the objectives of the MiFID II regulation is to improve consumer protection in general and, more particularly, to strengthen the risk disclosure and information duties on the investment firm’s side. Yet, whilst calling for transparency on performance, the European Authorities ended up doing the exact opposite and severely reduced transparency on net performance
On 20 September 2017 the European Commission (EC) announced its proposal to improve the supervision of European financial services as well as its revision of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs). The prospect of such a key reform prompted BETTER FINANCE and other European user-side NGOs to form an alliance to ensure an ESAs reform that
Following years of drafting the revision of the Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II) by the European Commission (EC), the EU presidency and the EU Parliament (EP) finally agreed on the final version of the new SRD on 9 December 2016. Whereas BETTER FINANCE welcomed the overhaul of the new SRD, it unfortunately had to note