| Author (Corporate) | European Commission |
|---|---|
| Series Title | COM |
| Series Details | (2012) 352 final (3.7.12) |
| Publication Date | 03/07/2012 |
| Content Type | Policy-making |
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Retail investment products – which include investment funds, retail structured products and certain types of insurance contracts used for investment purposes – are essential for meeting the needs of EU citizens for products with which to build up savings and investments, whilst also contributing to efficient capital markets that help fund EU economic growth. This proposal is about improving transparency in the investment market for retail investors. The EU has already taken innovative steps through the development of the UCITS 'key investor information' document (UCITS KIID). It was developed in a new way, on the basis of robust testing of disclosure approaches with retail investors themselves, to shorten, streamline and focus information provided to the greatest extent possible and ensure the information is comprehensible for the average retail investor. While disclosures for UCITS have therefore already been improved, those for the wider range of retail investment products have not. The task now is to address all such products: European retail investors should always receive short, comparable and standardised disclosures, termed 'key information documents' (KIDs), whatever the investment product they are considering. This proposal forms part of a wider legislative package dedicated to rebuilding consumer trust in financial markets. The package has two other parts. The first is an extensive overhaul of the Insurance Mediation Directive 2002/92/EC (IMD) to ensure that customers benefit from a high level of protection when buying insurance products. The final part of the package aims at strengthening the function of the depositary for UCITS – a key building block for investor protection provided for by the UCITS Directive. To ensure the continued effectiveness of this building block, targeted amendments are proposed to Directive 2009/65/EC. The measures on product disclosure proposed in this Regulation in particular complement investor protection measures on investment advice and sales services. As far as the sales of structured deposits are concerned these have been addressed by the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on markets in financial instruments repealing Directive 2004/39/EC. The revision of the IMD will specifically deal with the improvement of the sales rules for investment insurance products. |
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| Source Link | Link to Main Source http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0352:FIN:EN:PDF |
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| Subject Categories | Business and Industry, Internal Markets |
| Countries / Regions | Europe |
