At European Parliament’s plenary session on Monday 27 April, MEPs will debate the draft report prepared by Lídia Pereira (EPP, Portuguese) on financial education and the rise of “finfluencers”. The text was approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) on 20 March (see EUROPE 13833/16). A final vote is scheduled for Thursday 30 April in Strasbourg.
Ms Pereira stresses the need to strengthen Europeans’ financial culture at a time when the financial environment is becoming increasingly complex (see EUROPE 13850/20) and as knowledge levels remain low and uneven across the EU (see EUROPE 13720/7, 13592/11). Her report advocates developing financial education at all stages of life, from school to adult learning, in order to boost participation in financial markets.
The objective is to encourage grassroots initiatives and the integration of digital skills to help citizens better understand online content and identify risks, particularly fraud and scams.
In the draft text, European Parliament welcomes the non-binding strategy launched by the European Commission last September (see EUROPE 13720/6), but calls for “concrete measures as soon as possible”.
In particular, the report warns against the rise of ‘finfluencers’, people who promote financial products to the general public, sometimes on behalf of financial companies.
Regulatory oversight for ‘finfluencers’ was provided for in the ‘retail investment’ package, which is currently undergoing technical finalisation (see EUROPE 13678/32, 13776/15).
See the draft report by Lídia Pereira: https://aeur.eu/f/los (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)