As a first step towards the preparation of its report on the application of the IDD, EIOPA launched an initial survey addressed to external stakeholders, such as consumer associations, academics, trade associations, insurance undertakings and insurance intermediaries. Note: This feedback is provided by BETTER FINANCE together with its German (BdvBund der Versicherten e.V.) and French
EU authorities should prioritise the long overdue full PRIIPs Regulation review, and the UCITS funds’ exemption should be extended until this review is completed, as intended by EU Law. The organisations representing individual, non-professional investors and financial analysts advise the European Commission, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and the EU co-legislators against further delaying the
The European Commission (EC) launched two separate public consultations on the review of the regulatory framework for alternative investment funds (AIFs) and European long-term investment funds (ELTIFs). However, since ELTIFs are a sub-set of AIFs, for reasons of simplicity, BETTER FINANCE decided to gather input from its members in a joint document. The very name
BETTER FINANCE publishes the fifth annual edition of its research into Robo Advisors following mystery-shopping covering 13 Europe-based platforms and 4 non-European ones. The Robo Advice sector continues to grow and is well-placed to provide a range of benefits for individual investors, such as considerably lower fees, better accessibility and availability, and more “independent” advice,
Robo-advisors are online platforms that use artificial intelligence or algorithms to process information on clients’ investment preferences, risk tolerance and loss-absorption capacity, to determine an investor profile and make a personalised and often product-specific investment recommendation. This research shows the wide range of benefits that come with Robo-advice, such as considerably lower fees, increased accessibility
BETTER FINANCE fully supports EIOPA’s fundamental approach to preventing “green-washing” and “green bubbles”. ESG investments must be submitted to the same risk assessment procedures (ORSA) as any other investment by insurers. BETTER FINANCE also supports EIOPA’s proposal fora new short section in the SFCR with information specifically aimed at policyholders. It should be mandatory for
With the termination of the intra-EU bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in 2020 – which received significant criticism for overlapping with the EU single market rules – the EC launched an initiative to improve the investor protection and facilitation framework at EU level. This initiative was reiterated in the new Capital Markets Union (CMU) Action Plan
While the aim of the EU Ecolabel should be to guide retail investors towards truly sustainable financial products, and at the same time avoid the greenwashing of unsustainable investments, the current proposal creates the exact opposite scenario for the label. It is labeling unsustainable investments as “green” and not sufficiently promoting targeted and genuine sustainable
It is with great sadness that BETTER FINANCE learned on Monday 14 December 2020 that Wilhelm Rasinger, President of the Austrian Association for Investors (Interessenverbandes für Anleger – IVA) passed away. He was a great friend of our organisation and, even before his close involvement with the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users,
With merely 22 active funds, of which just a handful are marketed and distributed to individual, non-professional (“retail”) investors, the EU Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIF) market is still struggling to develop more than five years after its launch. The uptake of ELTIFs by investors is hampered by similar but more attractive domestic labels, a lack