Blackrock, the American global investment corporation acquired a €30 million stake in the European Robo-Investor Scalable Capital. The giant asset manager joins two others investors, Holtzbrink and Tengelman, in the last funding round by Scalable Capital. In 2015, Blackrock bought the US Robo-Investor FutureAdvisor which also uses ETFs (Exchange-traded Funds) to build portfolios for clients.
Today, Alin Iacob, Chairman of the Association of Romanian Financial Services Users, vice chair of the EBA Banking Stakeholder Group and Board Member of BETTER FINANCE, participated in a Panel Discussion on Retail Conduct Supervision at the Joint ESAs Consumer Protection Day 2017. He brought the perspective from Central and Eastern Europe on this important
In a letter addressed to the German Federal Minister of Economy and Energy, the Foundation expresses its disappointment regarding the absence of an answer to the letter sent to the Federal Minister in April 2017. As a reminder, the Stichting Volkswagen Investors Claim represents German and international investors (shareholders and bondholders of VW), who in
Sustainable Finance is the 2017 trend in Finance …but green bonds, ESG, SRI…are still concepts very much subject to questions and doubts regarding their definition and standards. However, despite this lack of definitions, Sustainable Finance seems to attract more and more investors. In a survey realized by Natixis Global Asset Management, the asset manager reveals
A new regulation raising standards for investment managers entered into force last week in the US, protecting investors and worrying active assets managers. Drawn up by the Obama Administration, this new fiduciary rule applies to the $16tn retirement investment market and is expected to spell the end of financial advisers recommending expensive funds to clients
Writing in Financial Times, Renaud De Planta, chairman of Pictect Asset Management, warns that passive investing could threaten the free-market economy. As a reminder, passive investing can be defined as an investment strategy that aims to maximize returns over the long run by keeping the amount of buying and selling to a minimum. The main
While voters are called upon to vote today in the UK to provide (or not) Theresa May with a strong majority government for the up-coming negotiations with the EU, asset managers seem increasingly worried about the access to investors in the EU when the UK finally leaves the EU common market. In a poll taken
The Regulation 2017/826 of 17 May 2017 establishing a Union programme to support specific activities enhancing the involvement of consumers and other financial services end-users in Union policy-making in the area of financial services for the period of 2017-2020 was published on Friday 19 May. This regulation will support the activities carried out by Finance Watch
President Trump is not the only threat to the USA. According to an academic study (The Hoover Institution, Stanford Graduate School of Business), the US public pension system has developed a $3.4tn funding hole. The study reveals that some states (Illinois, Arizona, Ohio and Nevada) and cities (Chicago, Dallas, Houston, El Paso) have underfunded their
In a white paper on MiFID II and PRIIPs rules, FE Limited, a UK-based investment ratings and research agency, warned about the difficulties advisers will face when providing clients with personalised data about their funds (costs, purchases and sales of funds). Three difficulties stand out: First of all it looks as though some fund firms