On Thursday 19 October, the European Supervisory Authorities - ESMA, EBA and EIOPA, which supervise the financial markets and the banking and insurance sectors respectively - were officially given a mandate by the European Commission to issue regular reports on the costs and past performances of certain products under their purview.
Readers may recall that this action was laid down in the revised action plan on the completion of the Capital Market Union (see EUROPE 11804), the aim of which is to increase the participation of retail investors on the capital markets by evaluating the net yield of retail investment products and related costs and charges.
On the basis of data from existing European reporting requirements or national legislation, these reports should include: - the presentation of costs and performances of the main categories of products, together with calculation methodologies and hypotheses used to aggregate the data; - problems encountered in data processing; - recommendations to approve the methodology ahead of future reports.
The products covered include UCITS (undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities) investment funds, structured products sold to retail investors, investment products based on insurance and providing a guarantee, pension products providing the investor with a pension income and certain benefits. The first reports are expected for the end of 2018. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)