(News Bulletin 247) – The Medef, the banking federation or even France Assureurs wrote a press release expressing their fears about this text which, by wanting to regulate the sale of financial products, risks having negative repercussions on the commissions received.

Nearly 20 employers’ federations and organizations published a press release on Monday to express their “great concern” about a draft directive proposed by the European Commission on the supervision of advice and the sale of financial products.

If the signatories, including the French Banking Federation, France Assureurs or even the Medef, say they share “the ambitions carried” and welcome “the provisions aimed at promoting financial education”, they are worried about the effects on the commissions received by distributors.

For several months, the Parisian financial center has been concerned about a text that would ban them.

A distribution under threat?

In its draft proposed on May 24, “the European Commission claims to rule out a general ban on remuneration by commission, but in practice the new obligations which condition them make them essentially inapplicable in securities accounts, in life insurance and risk more broadly to undermine the entire distribution of products”, judge the authors of the text.

“As it stands, this would lead to the virtual abolition of the commission-based model, de facto depriving the most modest savers of access to advice (advice gap) and also depriving many savers of financial products made unavailable through intermediaries. financial”, they continue.

According to them, “the text also provides for numerous extremely restrictive provisions in the governance and process of selling savings products”, including “real price control in a market that is now very competitive”.

Brussels wants to better protect individual investors, in the hope of encouraging investments in shares or bonds and thus better developing European financial markets. To this end, the European Commission wishes to improve the information provided to investors, which will be more standardized, and to establish better transparency of costs by also imposing a standardized presentation and terminology.

In order to limit the conflicts of interest of financial advisers, the commissions which will be allocated to them to encourage them to sell certain products will be subject to “stricter safeguards and reinforced transparency obligations”.

This package still needs to be negotiated with the Member States and the European Parliament.

(With AFP)