As reported in the latest issue of Funds Europe, dark pools could be in for more scrutiny and eventually obliged to publish more information to investors. All alternative trading venues used by institutions and other investors, so-called dark pools, should be investigated in light of accusations by the New York attorney general that Barclays was
According to a survey carried out by Ernst & Young (EY), Europe’s retail investors have a lower understanding of investment products than their counterparts in the US and Asia. The survey, covering 42 managers representing 30% of regulated funds, including Europe’s UCITS funds, concludes that this presents a major challenge for managers’ growth aspirations. Michael Fergusson, regulated funds leader at EY, believes
The makeup of the banking landscape and the choice of the type of banks is a public policy issue that concerns all citizens. The problem is not that there are too many banks in Belgium, as suggested by the Belgian Governor of the National Bank, but that there are too many similar banks! Find out
On Thursday 3 April, the European Parliament voted to cap interbank fees for all card payments. European lawmakers backed a plan that would see bank charges for processing payments via credit cards capped at 0.3 percent of the transaction value (and at a maximum of € 0.7 or 0.2% for debit cards) for all national and transnational transactions. According to the European Commission,
Following their annual joint meeting, France and Germany are willing to join forces to find an agreement on a European financial transactions tax by the end of May. In a joint press conference, Francois Hollande, the French president said that he would “prefer an imperfect tax to no tax at all”. Angela Merkel, German chancellor, said that setting
The Czech second-pillar pensions system is at risk following the announcement of its actual termination as of 2016 by the new Czech Labor and Social Affairs Minister Michaela Marksova-Tominova. One day after the new Czech government’s swearing in, Ms. Marksova said she would initiate a new pension reform based on the agreement between the coalition parties ANO and the Christian Democrats
Following the filling of three lawsuits by VZMD, the Slovenian Constitutional Court acknowledged the legal interest of the 293 initiators united by VZMD who were all owners of subordinated bonds of three Slovenian banks who were expropriated on December 18. VZMD demanded a constitutional review of the Banking Act and the Court accepted the hearing
Today the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) appointed their new Securities Markets Stakeholders Group members. Their announcement follows that of the other European Supervisory Authorities: the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA). EuroFinUse now counts with 3 representatives in the two European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority’s
The Eurozone’s politicians have been very hesitant to scrutinize banks’ balance-sheets and even more reluctant to force banks to start cleaning up the mess. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), announced this week that he intends to end this travesty and launched an initiative to inspect the balance-sheets of the region’s
EuroFinUse – The Federation of Financial Services Users is hosting an International Conference on ‘The Financial Repression of Savers and Investors’ on 18 October 2013 in Vienna Programme 09:00 – 09:30 Registration – Welcome Coffee 09:30 – 09:45 Welcome Speech Wilhelm Rasinger, President IVA and Jean Berthon, President EuroFinUse 09:45 – 10:05