On 24 May 2023, the European Commission presented a proposal for a retail investment strategy (RIS) which, among other things, provides for an amendment of the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). The German Banking Industry Committee (GBIC) supports the European Commission’s intention to use the RIS, developed as part of the capital markets union, to make the securities business more consumer-friendly and thereby encourage retail investors to invest in EU capital markets.
However, with the RIS, the European Commission has presented a proposal which cannot achieve most of these aims and may even work to counter them:
The European Commission has rightly opposed a complete ban on inducements. But the RIS would not only lead to more and more complex regulation, it would also make participation in the securities business more difficult, particularly for those clients that are supposed to be guided towards the capital markets. The RIS also would lead to higher costs, which clients would ultimately have to pay for. Furthermore, the RIS contains some elements that are close to price regulation and would lead to a limitation on the range of products offered in investment advice and would influence the market. And the RIS remains vague on many requirements, thus deferring key political decisions to delegated acts to be issued by the European Commission (Level 2) or to the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA (Level 3).
GBIC has summarized its most important points of criticism on the European Commission's proposal in a position paper. In addition, detailed GBIC comments were prepared, which contain an in-depth assessment of the provisions of the European Commission's proposal.
