Study on Options for Development of Online Tools and Services Supporting Retail Investors in Investment Decisions

Download or read book Study on Options for Development of Online Tools and Services Supporting Retail Investors in Investment Decisions written by and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capital Market Union aimed at invigorating the participation of retail investors in the financing of the economy together with other policy objectives. However, EU citizens still face difficulties when planning to invest in financial products (e.g. investment fund, life insurance or private pension product), that meet their life needs and expectations. Despite all efforts and documentation, gathering independent and comparable information on product features is still perceived as a challenge for most investors. From the entire universe of potential aids to investing, the one most efficient would be to focus on the ways to provide a practical solution to increase transparency and comparability of retail financial products, that could be accelerated with the creation of an investor products hub (i.e. a database), containing complete, correct and independent information about all managed financial products available across EU capital markets. To be most efficient, that investor product hub should rely on existing information and recycle it where and if possible. At a high-level, the database would be operated by a single public body and accessible for free by retail investors as well as financial professionals and academics, the latter for research purposes. This report proposes a description of existing product disclosure platforms, it further describes high level technical and functional requirements for the creation of the hub, including a high level implementation roadmap as well as regulatory amendments that should be envisaged to facilitate the development of the tool. If feasible, the scope and depth of coverage of this retail investor products hub represent challenges both in terms of creation and maintenance. Nevertheless, it has the potential to materially increase retail investors' level of information on financial products available to them whilst limiting legal and regulatory hurdles.