During a debate on the European Commission’s proposal to amend the Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD) held on the 12th of May in Brussels, Guillaume Prache, Managing Director of BETTER FINANCE, denounced the fees that individual investors often have to pay in order to exercise their voting rights. These fees can be particularly high for cross-border
After weeks of obscure discussions between the Cypriot government and the Troika, it was revealed that the Cyprus bail-out package will imply, among other measures, losses on deposits over 100,000 euros that could amount to up to 60% of the money depositors had in the Bank of Cyprus. EuroFinUse strongly opposes the bank crisis approach
An article from the FT on the ongoing opposition to the PRIIPs KID rules reiterates the industry’s growing concerns that the disclosure requirements on costs and charges for investment products generate the opposite result of that aimed by the Regulation. Alongside voices on the professional side, Guillaume Prache – Managing Director at BETTER FINANCE –
The European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, has just ruled in favor of investors who faced expropriation during the nationalization of six Slovenian banks in 2013. BETTER FINANCE and the PanSlovenian Investors` & Shareholders` Association (VZMD), the organization that has been fighting on behalf of the investors for the past 30 months, see this decision
Investment firms charging fees for the active management of funds that in reality behave more like index trackers are coming under renewed pressure in Europe. One campaigner representing four million savers in the region has pledged to “name and shame” so-called closet-indexing funds. Guillaume Prache, the managing director of European investment lobby group BETTER FINANCE,
Following Monday’s vote by the parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON), PensionsEurope praised MEPs in pushing for a “practicable, proportionate and less prescriptive proposal” compared with that tabled by the Commission in 2014. PensionsEurope welcomed a “simplification” of the universal Pension Benefit Statement (PBS), which consumer group BETTER FINANCE had previously warned against. Indeed
The findings of BETTER FINANCE’s latest research report – “Pension Savings: The Real Return” – were covered in Brazil, where two consulting firms echoed our concerns regarding the disappointing performance of private pensions: high fees and commissions are putting the savings of most European citizens at risk. The absence of an objective analysis of the performance of pension funds demonstrates that regulators
In its spring edition, Global Custodian published an article on how the EU is aiming at shedding a light at the calculation and measurement of investment transaction costs. EU financial regulations such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the regulation on Packaged Retail Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIPs) or the European Shareholder Rights Directive
"Pension Savings: The Real Return" was mentioned in the Money column of BT and LoveMoney. Both articles compare the conclusions drawn in a new report by Mercer and the Australian Centre for Financial Studies, in which the UK’s pensions are shown as the ninth best in the world, against BETTER FINANCE’s research which shows that "Britain is actually one of the worst places
Following a debate on the European Commission’s proposal to amend the Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD) held on the 12th of May in Brussels, Funds Europe now draws attention to BETTER FINANCE’s concerns regarding the fees that individual investors often have to pay in order to exercise their voting rights. BETTER FINANCE believes that European shareholders should be able to