According to the Independent, UK shareholder activism is seriously lagging behind most EU Member States, while European success stories include the Swedish Shareholder Association and its counterpart in Denmark. All three organisations are members of EuroFinuse, the European Federation of Financial Services Users. The question arises if shareholder activism, consisting of dialogue and formal shareholder
The Financial Services Authority said on Wednesday 16 January 2013 it now "plans to expand its review to look at bonus and commission schemes", according to the Financial Times. The FSA also issued final guidance on how such schemes should be managed in the future. The aim is to prevent a repetition of the payment
With the view to domesticate "shadow banking" the Financial Stability Board propsed at yesterday’s global regulators meeting higher levels of government intervention for non-bank lending markets. High quality global journalism requires investment. The wide-ranging package includes "new rules for everything from asset securitisation to short-term lending, as well as guidelines for regulators around the world
In its briefing paper published ahead of its conference on public and private enforcement, BETTER FINANCE took a deeper look at the mis-selling of financial products and, unsurprisingly, concluded that several key EU regulatory provisions pertaining to retail investor and saver protection are not properly enforced. Besides proposals to improve the public enforcement of
22 May 2017 – With up to 20 expert members taking part in the four stakeholder groups of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), including 3 vice-chairs, BETTER FINANCE is the user-side NGO that is most actively involved with the work of the ESAs. It is therefore particular well-placed to contribute to this very welcome and
The Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities recently issued its proposal for regulatory technical standards (RTS) on Key Information Documents (KIDs) for Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs). BETTER FINANCE already expressed its major concern with the destruction of a key improvement of the UCITS funds regulation in the past: the mandatory, standardised
Volkswagen has admitted that an estimated 11 million cars worldwide were involved in the falsified emission reports. Reports have emerged that Volkswagen’s top management had been aware of the deception since before the official ad-hoc announcement. Representing VW shareholders, the German investor association DSW, a member organization of BETTER FINANCE (the European Federation of Investors
In an ideal world there would be no “inducements”, and product providers would definitely not be paying commissions – whether directly or indirectly- to so-called “advisors”. But we are not in an ideal world, we are in the real world. In the real Continental European world, ESMA’s proposal 10i for MiFID II implementation1 looks like a further boost to
On October 18, EuroFinUse and the Austrian Shareholder Association (IVA) held an international conference on “The Financial Repression of Savers and Investors”, in Vienna. International authorities from the private and public sectors discussed the alleged inevitability of Financial Repression and proposed solutions to face this issue. The event held at the Vienna Insurance Group was
On the 24th of April 2018 Le Vif published an article outlining BETTER FINANCE`s stated concerns on poor performance of savings through retirement products, resulting from fees and taxes limiting interest rates. The article was published in light of political authorities` desire to encourage savings through such retirement products. To read full article: "L’épargne-pension ne rapporte pas