At the end of 2014 the European Commission adopted a Regulation requiring for a new form of short, standardised consumer‐friendly information (a “Key Information Document” or KID) to be provided to retail investors when buying Packaged Retail and Insurance‐based Investment Products (PRIIPs). With the Regulation intended to come into force on 31 December 2016, the
In December 2013 the subordinated bondholders in five Slovenian banks (NLB, NKBM, Abanka, Probanka and Factor Banka) were bailed-in to refinance these struggling institutions. Subordinated bonds in a sixth bank (Banka Celje) were wiped out in December 2014. In each case the bail-in consisted of a complete wipe-out of all subordinated bonds, including those sold
In December 2013 the subordinated bondholders in five Slovenian banks (NLB, NKBM, Abanka, Probanka and Factor Banka) were bailed-in to refinance these struggling institutions. Subordinated bonds in a sixth bank (Banka Celje) were wiped out in December 2014. In each case the bail-in consisted of a complete wipe-out of all subordinated bonds, including those sold
In 2014, the Danish financial supervisor revealed it had found that almost a third of Danish equity funds were in effect expensive clones of the indices, or « closet indexers »: mutual funds that claim to be actively managed, but that in reality charge high “active” fees for index-like performance, which would warrant much lower
The FSUG is of the view that eliminating standardised, easily comparable data on past performance will be a regressive step for investors and will reverse some of the partial progress made on making the investment market more transparent and accountable.
On February 2nd ESMA released some long awaited results of its investigation on falsely active equity UCITS funds (also called “closet indexers”). Those are funds that claim to be “actively” managed but that are in fact merely following market indices, although they charge much higher fees than low cost index-tracking funds such as ETFs. The
BETTER FINANCE welcomes this call for evidence on the EU financial regulatory framework and indeed agrees with the fact that it is necessary to introduce improvements in certain areas, and sometimes simplification and cohesion along with the „REFIT“ approach.
BETTER FINANCE welcomes this Consultation following the previous inquiries of stakeholders by the ESAs which enabled us to previously express our views on the KIDs from the retail investor point of view. We are thankful for the opportunity to provide our views at this key moment since we believe there are many important issues that
The German investor association DSW, a member organisation of BETTER FINANCE, is examining the possibility of legal proceedings in Germany on the grounds that VW violated its duty to immediately disclose all information regarding the manipulation of emissions and the ensuing fallout. Since the issue is clearly not limited to Germany, DSW is also examining
The latest amendments to the European Parliament’s ECON Committee draft report on the Directive are worrying to say the least. Following these, BETTER FINANCE wrote a letter to the rapporteur on 26 November to voice its concern regarding the proposed amendments that would constitute a very significant setback in the protection of EU pension savers,