The EU Capital Markets Union (CMU) is a plan to create a Single Market for capital. The aim is to get money - investments and savings - flowing across the EU to benefit consumers, investors and companies, regardless of where they are located.

A first Green Paper on CMU was published in 2015, followed by various follow-up measures, a key one being the 2020 CMU Action Plan setting out 16 legislative and non-legislative measures, including actions of importance for intermediaries, such as increasing the quality of financial advice and an assessment and review of the rules related to inducements, investment advice and information disclosure.

Regarding the latter, the Commission has prepared a Retail Investment Strategy (RIS) which should focus on the interests of individual investors:

“An individual investor should benefit from: (i) adequate protection, (ii) bias-free advice and fair treatment, (iii) open markets with a variety of competitive and cost-efficient financial services and products, and (iv) transparent, comparable and understandable product information. EU legislation should be forward-looking and should reflect ongoing developments in digitalisation and sustainability, as well as the increasing need for retirement savings.”

The RIS looks in parallel at IDD (IBIPs chapter), MiFID II and PRIIPs.

“The EU's Retail Investment Strategy - Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”

Article written by Prof. Karel Van Hulle for BIPAR