+32 25 14 37 77

Members' Portal



image
Gateway to
Responsible Investing

About Us

BETTER FINANCE, the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users, is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) acting in the public interest.

It advocates for and defends the interests of European citizens as financial services users at the European level, engaging with lawmakers and the public to promote research, information, and education on investment, savings, and personal finance. It is the only European-level organisation solely dedicated to representing individual investors, savers, and other financial services users.

The goal of the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users – BETTER FINANCE (BF) – is to act as an independent centre of financial expertise for the direct benefit of European financial services users.

These include individual and small shareholders, fund and other retail investors, savers, pension fund participants, life insurance policyholders, borrowers, and other stakeholders who are independent of the financial industry. As such, BETTER FINANCE provides independent expertise and advocacy for EU citizens in general.

BETTER FINANCE acts as an independent centre for financial expertise and advocacy for the direct benefit of European financial services users.

Since its constituency includes individual and small shareholders, fund and retail investors, savers, pension fund participants, life insurance policyholders, borrowers, and other stakeholders independent of the financial industry, it works in the best interests of all European citizens.

BETTER FINANCE conducts campaigns to provide relevant information and stronger protection for end-users, promote market integrity and transparency for retail investors and non-industry stakeholders, and advocate for improved governance of financial supervision for all European citizens.

In 2009, for the first time, all types of financial services users – such as individual shareholders, fund investors, insurance policyholders, bank savers, pension fund participants, borrowers, and others – joined forces to create BETTER FINANCE.

Today, BETTER FINANCE has nearly 40 independent national and international member and sub-member organisations, primarily from EU Member States, but also from countries including Iceland, Norway and Lebanon.

BETTER FINANCE is an Association Sans But Lucratif registered in Belgium and is independently funded through membership fees, grants, and donations. BETTER FINANCE’s activities are partly funded by the European Union, Iceland and Liechtenstein. There is no implied endorsement by the EU or the European Commission of the work carried out by BETTER FINANCE, which remains the sole responsibility of BETTER FINANCE.

BETTER FINANCE ASBL is registered in the EU Joint Transparency Register under registration number 24633926420-79.

History

At the initiative of Euroshareholders and FAIDER, the French Association for Independent Pension Savers, the European Federation of Investors was created in 2009 under the name EuroInvestors.

In 2012, the organisation changed its name from EuroInvestors to EuroFinUse – the European Federation of Financial Services Users – to better reflect its expanded scope and membership.

Today, BETTER FINANCE is a public interest international organisation, partly supported by the European Union, Iceland and Liechtenstein, acting as an independent centre of financial expertise to benefit all European financial services users by promoting training, research, and information on investment, savings, and personal finance.

BETTER FINANCE represents around 4 million financial services users through nearly 40 organisations in 25 countries, including 18 EU Member States. Join us to ensure your constituents’ voices are heard at the European level.

EuroInvestors

BETTER FINANCE was created in 2009 following the financial crisis to federate individual investor organisations across Europe, including but not limited to shareholder associations. It also advocates for investors in fixed income securities such as bonds, in investment funds, in life insurance and pension funds, as well as those investing in bank savings products.

Today, individual investors are mainly offered “packaged” products rather than securities (shares and bonds): 78% of EU households’ financial assets are held in such packaged investment products (life insurance, pension funds, bank accounts, investment funds). Since the 2008 financial crisis, new EU regulations have improved the protection of individual investors, but BETTER FINANCE believes much remains to be done to ensure consistent levels of protection, business conduct rules, and disclosure of key information.

EuroShareholders

Since 2012, BETTER FINANCE has been the successor organisation to Euroshareholders, created in 1992 in Brussels to unite associations of small shareholders across Europe.

Protecting the interests of individual shareholders is at the core of BETTER FINANCE’s mission. Individual share ownership plays a vital role in ensuring effective and long-term financing of the real economy and enhancing the corporate governance of listed companies in Europe. Indeed, individual shareholders are typically long-term, end-investors who bear the full risks and rewards of ownership, in contrast to “agency” owners.

Unfortunately, EU financial policies have generally not supported the development of individual share ownership, despite the 2007 Shareholders’ Rights Directive. As a result, both the number of individual shareholders and their ownership share in EU-listed companies have declined over recent decades, in favour of agency owners such as investment funds, which do not bear the direct risks and rewards of share ownership. These agency owners typically have much shorter investment horizons, as evidenced by high portfolio turnover rates, and charge fees to the beneficial owners.

BETTER FINANCE advocates for stronger protection of individual shareholders’ rights.

EuroFinUse

Since 2012, BETTER FINANCE has also extended its focus beyond individual share ownership and investments to other financial services users, such as savers – particularly bank savers (who hold 35% of EU households’ financial assets in bank accounts) – as well as life insurance policyholders, pension fund participants, mortgage borrowers, foreign exchange users, credit card holders, and more.

BETTER FINANCE brings its expertise in investment and financial matters to these retail financial issues and cooperates with other consumer and civil society organisations in this field.