Brussels, 15 April 2014 – Today,the European Parliament adopted the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFID II / MiFIR). The European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB) welcomes today’s vote as an important milestone in reforming the provision of services in financial instruments in Europe, noting that many implementation challenges still lie ahead. It welcomes the legislator’s decision to refrain from imposing a total ban on inducements. For further information, please click on READ MORE.
Investment advice based on inducements guarantees the provision of qualified investment advice for all sections of the population and on a country-wide basis, hence in addition to urban also to rural areas. The EACB General Manager, Hervé Guider, said: “We fully support the objective of customers being better protected and have actively promoted absolute transparency on cost and revenue structures. We believe that clients should have the possibility to choose the model of investment support that would best fit their investment objective and that transparent disclosure of inducements will help guide the client in making an informed decision.”
As the type of remuneration is no indication of the quality of investment advice, the EACB regrets that MiFID II provides a categorization between “dependent” and “independent” investment advice. In any case, the categorisation should not lead to placing an investment firm in a situation where they need to decide between one option or another.
Having in mind the various technical details that need to be developed by the Regulators, the EACB is looking forward to engaging with the European Commission, ESMA and other stakeholders in the development of the Level 2 measures to ensure that the legislation properly addresses the diversity of banking industry.
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