The organisation, which represents the investment management industry in Europe, announced that although it “strongly supports” moves by the EU to make financial products such as mortgages, life insurance and investment funds available to all consumers across the continent at the same price, it urged the body to go further and introduce a standardised Pan-European personal pension product (Pepp).
Peter de Proft, director general of Efama, said: “We feel very strongly about the need to address the current fragmentation of the market for retirement savings.
“This has to be done in order to foster portability, economies of scale to lower costs and generate better returns to consumers, and also to enhance transparency, competition and innovation. The creation of a standardised Pan-European Personal Pension product (Pepp) would allow progressing in that direction.”
Ucits success
Responding to the EU’s green paper on retail financial services – which examined the barriers to implementing a single market – Efama referred to the success of Ucits in recent years as demonstrative of what can be achieved from a unified market.
Undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (Ucits) are regulated investment funds that can be sold to the general public throughout the EU.
According to recent figures published by Efama, the share of Ucits distributed on a cross-border basis in Europe is increasing rapidly and now stands at 42% of total European investment fund assets in 2014, up from 29% at the end of 2004.
Alexander Schindler, president of Efama, said: “Investment funds – Ucits in particular – are the best possible example to date of a well-functioning EU single market for financial services, and Ucits is often cited as a successful story to find inspiration from.”
Despite their success, the organisation pointed out that there are still a number of obstacles preventing cross-border take up of Ucits – namely fragmented marketing rules and discriminatory withholding of tax by EU Member States.
