9 October 2017 – BETTER FINANCE, the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users, launched the fifth edition of its annual Pension Savings Report. Started in 2013, the annual research report undertakes an analysis of European pension investment funds and State pensions schemes, in order to provide the European citizen with the ‘real figures’
BETTER FINANCE alongside with fund managers and Politicians have failed to persuade the European Union to implement amendments that were aimed at making documents easier to understand and more reliable for investors. Guillaume Prache, managing director of BETTER FINANCE, said the European Commission’s decision last week to sign off the rules without any amendments was
In the next two years, European investment funds will be subjected to two regulatory changes. If MIFIDII is expected to have a limited impact, according to experts, PRIPS raises more concerns. MiFID II is supposed to enter into force in 2017; however, since the financial sector is not ready, it will take more time. The
The verdict is catastrophic: the costs of products under collective management are so high that they "rewarded" unitholders with a loss of about one third of their savings between 1999 and 2014. Conversely, individual shareholders who during the same period invested directly in French shares, provided sufficiently diversified portfolios, have seen returns equivalent to at
Sergio Ermotti, the chairman of UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, has made a bold statement. “It is ok to take risks and make mistakes as long as they are honest ones”, he said. According to the Financial Times, Ermotti pointed out that the key lies in the difference between breaking the rules and making honest mistakes while
The EU has been working on a framework for third-pillar personal pension products (PPPs) for quite some time now. In July 2012, the Commission requested the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) to provide technical advice to develop an EU Single Market for personal pension schemes. In February 2014, EIOPA delivered a preliminary report.
"Pension Savings: The Real Return" 2014 Edition was mentioned in "Buttonwood’s notebook" column of The Economist. The articles echoes that savers across from Europe have often received negative real returns this century, with the estimate for Britain at -0.7%. Please find the article here and our press release "Beware! Saving for your pensions may be losing you money." here.
BETTER FINANCE was mentioned in an Investment & Pension Europe article focussing on the crucial importance of long-term investment. The article also takes a critical look at the European Commission’s overdue report on the responses to its consultations. It couldn’t be timelier. BETTER FINANCE “blames the destruction of the value of long-term and pension savings”
EuroFinUse’s Report “Private Pensions: The Real Returns” was quoted in Investments and Pensions Europe in an article dealing with the sale of private pensions in Belgium. The report was shown during a symposium aimed at informing future pensioners about pensions in Belgium. Conspicuously absent at the symposium in question was critical information on issues such
On the 30th of May, the European Commission initiated the budgetary (legislative) procedure and submitted the Draft 2018 E.U. Budget to the two co-legislators, the Council of the European Union (Council) and the European Parliament (E.P.). Reacting to the draft budget, Sven Giegold, member of the E.P. for the European Free Alliance (also called The Greens),