Draft report on the Retail Investment Strategy

With some delay, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in the EU Parliament (ECON) unveiled the draft report on the Omnibus Directive and on the PRIIPs Amendment Regulation. The rapporteur is Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Renew Europe).

Thomas Richter, CEO of the German Investment Funds Association BVI, comments on the Omnibus Directive:

"The rapporteur shares our criticism in key points in her draft. We support her demand that the EU should primarily abandon the partial ban on commissions and the benchmarking and should hold back on market interventions. This is because many of the proposed measures are not suitable for achieving the Commission's objectives. On the contrary, some of them are even counterproductive because they keep retail investors away from the capital markets. For example, the planned ban on commissions in non-advised sales leads to services provided by distributors, such as the brokering of orders, being priced separately. However, this would disproportionately burden savers with small investment amounts. This could lead them to withdraw from the financial markets. With the planned benchmarking in distribution, the EU promotes a one-sided focus on costs - at the expense of product quality and innovation. The expected return and the quality of a product are just as important for savers as the fees.”