Gabriel Bernardino – Chairman of EIOPA – in a letter to Jonathan Faull – Director General of the European Commission’s DG MARKT – pointed to the urgent need to improve consumer protection in the area of insurance investment products (mainly life insurance). He urges that regulatory intervention is necessary to reinforce the protection of policyholders’
EuroFinUse was quoted by the Financial Times in relation to the European Securities and Markets Authority recent report on structured products. Following "relatively low” returns on investment in structured products over the past five years, the ESMA is concerned that retail investors who invest in structured products that use hedge fund-type strategies might not have
The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authorities (EIOPA) launches the Call for Expression of Interest regarding the setting up of EIOPA Stakeholder Groups, the Insurance and Reinsurance Stakeholder Group (IRSG) and the Occupational Pensions Stakeholder Group (OPSG), following the expiration of their mandates later this year. The Stakeholder Groups are set up to help facilitate
The outrageous remuneration of many EU bankers is an issue, as bankers’ bonuses have been and are still largely (and unwillingly) funded by taxpayers, clients and non-insider shareholders who have been losing billions on their bank equity investments since 2008, when many bankers did not disgorge their enormous bonuses and too often continue to enjoy
Loyal shareholders in European companies would gain extra voting rights and a bigger slice of dividends under a proposal being floated by Brussels to spur long-term investment. Michel Barnier, the EU single market commissioner, is preparing to field views on potentially revising the “one-share one-vote” principle applied by the bulk of EU companies, according to
Bankia’s debt holders comprising tens of thousands of retail clients will face a writedown of between 46 and 14 per cent as part of a restructering and burden sharing "demanded by Brussels in return for a capital injection that Spain’s fourth-largest lender is set to receive from the EU’s permanent rescue fund". Read the full
On 22 November, BETTER FINANCE, the European Investment Bank and the Federation of European Securities Exchanges teamed up for the International Conference on the ‘Equity Financing of the EU Economy’. A full room was addressed by prominent speakers representing the European Parliament and Commission, Permanent Representations to the EU, European Supervisory Authorities and consumer and
13 June 2017 – Today BETTER FINANCE will release its research report on Robo-Investing at the Seminar on Financial Guidance. Financial Guidance, as opposed to Advice, is a fee-based, rather than commission-based, model. This model should ensure a better alignment with client interests. As such Robo-Investing providers may actually be rather well placed to provide
BETTER FINANCE, supports the proposed resolution by the European Parliament to reject the misleading and overly complex draft implementation rules ("Regulatory Technical Standards" or RTS) of the "PRIIPs". BETTER FINANCE however regrets that the stated reasons for the proposed resolution for rejection of the RTS include only those advocated by the financial industry, omitting the
Savings accounts still constitute the most widely-used (35% of all financial savings of EU household ) financial products in Europe and together represent roughly € 10 trillion of household savings. Unfortunately EU citizens are now losing money in 11 out of 18 Member States studied in a new report, with negative real returns on their