RIS: let’s make the skills matter.

After many consultations and reports within the framework of the Retail Investment Strategy (RIS), the European Commission (EC) published in May the proposal for an “Omnibus Directive” as regards the retail investor protection rules, which modifies five main financial market directives. This proposal is geared towards improving the conduct of institutions to address shortcomings in financial distribution such as insufficient information, and excessive costs and biases in money management and advice that could hinder retail investors' access to equity markets, as per the Capital Markets Union (CMU) main aim.

The initial responses raised by the sector have generally been rather lukewarm, especially in acknowledging the weaknesses of the present placement of European savings and of the current distribution models for financial services and products in Europe exposed by the EC, and clearly forceful in expressing opposition and caveats regarding the specific measures announced by the Commission to alleviate the insufficiently effective functioning of these models. This type of reaction has been followed by most of the representative associations of financial entities and professionals, including the most relevant in our advisory or financial mediation activity. Although, it must be said, with different degrees and nuances.
I sincerely believe that we are facing a much more powerful challenge than a simple regulatory threat, as it was on other reforms. The explanatory statement of the RIS proposal is clear and...

The European Federation of Financial Advisers and Financial Intermediaries (FECIF) was chartered in June 1999 for the defence and promotion of the role of financial advisers and intermediaries in Europe.

FECIF, the only body representing European financial advisers and intermediaries, it is based in Brussels, the heart of Europe.