Friday October 20 2017

News Source: Fund Regulation

Focus: Other

Type: General

Country: European Union




On 17th October 2017, Steven Maijoor, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), spoke about the challenges facing European financial markets. He focused on three key issues in his speech:

  1. To build a Capital Markets Union, especially by protecting retail investors;
  2. A strong convergent European supervisory culture including Brexit; and
  3. Improving our understanding of trends, risks and vulnerabilities in financial markets.

Based on a mandate of the European Commission, together with EBA and EIOPA,  they are embarking on a large-scale study assessing the reporting of costs and past performance of retail investment products, in order to increase investors’ awareness of the net return of these products, and the impact of fees and charges. The implementation of MIFID II and PRIIPS, which will both increase the transparency on costs and charges, provide the right framework for such a study.

For securities markets, they intend to initially focus on the costs and performance of UCITS funds. In that context, they will also look into the differences between active and passive investing, and the impact on costs and charges, and long-term return.

Please click on the above link for further information.