Retail Investment Strategy – European Parliament’s position

The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has adopted a position on the Retail Investment Strategy (RIS). Among the topics of particular interest to AMAFI, several stand out:

• Inducements ban: AMAFI is pleased that the Parliament’s position does not include a full or partial ban but notes the inclusion of a clause requiring a review to be carried out five years after the Level 2 legislation is adopted. .
• Value for money: AMAFI notes that European benchmarks established by ESMA and EIOPA, or by national authorities for solely local products, are to be used as tools to supervise business practices. However, besides being inapplicable to structured products, the proposed approach would not involve the industry in setting the benchmarks and would concentrate on costs at the expense of performance or other qualitative factors.
• PRIIPs: AMAFI is disappointed that sustainability disclosures apply only to products subject to reporting obligations under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and are not aligned with MiFID II provisions. It is also disappointed that plain vanilla products have been kept within the scope of packaged retail investment and insurance products (PRIIPs).

On the Council side, member states continue to negotiate, and a general approach may be reached by the end of June. Should that be the case, trilogue negotiations would then start at the close of 2024 under Hungary’s presidency, once the institutional renewal process is over.