Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
My thanks to Aleksandra and the team at Better Finance for putting together today's conference and for inviting me to take part in the discussion.
I welcome events like this one, where retail investors are placed at the heart of the debate. Because, at the end of the day, the Savings and Investments Union will only succeed if citizens buy into the project — and if they can see that investing can deliver better long-term outcomes for their savings.
In our Savings and Investments Union communication, we set out four pillars: citizens and savings, investment and financing, integration and scale, and efficient supervision.
But in reality, citizens are the foundation on which the entire project rests. Without their participation and their trust, none of the other pillars can stand. Because one of the core realizations that inspired the SIU and that sets it apart from earlier initiatives is that Europe does not lack capital – but that it lacks mobilised capital.
For a continent with some of the highest savings rates in the world, we still struggle to turn those savings into productive investment.
And this is not just a question of low levels of financial literacy, a lack of simple and trusted products, a cultural preference for safety, or limited incentives to invest. It is also linked to the architecture of our markets.
Our objective therefore needs to be to make the Single Market work better. By breaking down barriers, increasing competition and choice, and helping to lower costs, we can make it easier for citizens to participate in Europe's capital markets.
Today, I would like to speak about some of the proposals we have put forward through the SIU, notably the Market Integration and Supervision Package (MISP), and on how they can improve the retail investor journey.
Our work under the pillar of “citizens and savings” is really about inclusion and participation.
Citizens can only get involved if they have the knowledge and skills to do so. That is why we have made financial literacy a priority.
And when I say financial literacy, I am not just talking about teaching citizens how to invest. Financial literacy is much broader than that. It is about knowing how to manage a household budget, plan for the future, and avoid excessive debt, scams and misinformation. These are essential life skills.
Once citizens are armed with the necessary knowledge, they also need attractive, easily accessible, and transparent ways to put their money to work in capital markets. Experience from several EU Member States shows that Savings and Investment Accounts (SIAs) are an effective way to achieve this.
Along with our Financial Literacy Strategy, we have therefore put forward a Recommendation to Member States to introduce simple and transparent SIAs, with associated tax benefits, that will enable citizens to participate in capital markets even where they only have very small amounts to invest.
Supplementary pension products are another key lever that enables long-term saving. The Commission has recommended that Member States introduce auto-enrolment in supplementary pension schemes.
By changing the default from “opt-in” to “opt-out”, auto-enrolment significantly increases participation and helps embed long-term saving behaviour early in working lives, while ensuring citizens can stay out if they choose to do so. When well designed, these systems have delivered strong results in several countries.
They enable individuals to build pension savings gradually over time and, crucially, to start early - maximising the benefits of long-term investment and compounding returns.
On top of our recommendation - which also encourages Member States to set up pension tracking systems to give citizens a full overview of their pension rights - we have proposed a review of the Pan-European personal pension product (PEPP), seeking to turn it into a genuinely European, cost-effective and flexible long-term savings product, making it attractive for EU citizens.
However, and as I mentioned earlier, delivering better outcomes for retail investors is not only about targeted consumer-facing measures.
It also depends fundamentally on the strength, scale and efficiency of our capital markets.
This is where the Market Integration and Supervision Package – known as the MISP - comes in.
It is one of the most consequential elements of the Savings and Investments Union, because truly integrated and deep capital markets are essential to deliver growth, competitiveness and better investment opportunities.
By addressing fragmentation and removing barriers, the package will help create new financing channels for European companies, and eventually offer households a broader range of investment opportunities.
This matters because fragmentation does not only affect firms and market infrastructure. It also affects retail investors. When markets remain divided along national lines, investors face fewer options, less competition between providers, and often higher costs.
A more integrated market will allow investment products and services to reach citizens more easily across borders.
The measures on asset management are designed to foster scale and competition among UCITS and AIFs - which should translate into more efficient products and lower fees.
There is still room to improve and make it easier for asset managers to take advantage of the single market, including by reducing differences in relation to cross border marketing and distribution.
For retail investors, this means more choice, more competition and better value. It means a wider range of products, more pressure on providers to improve quality and reduce fees, and a market where citizens are not limited by the size or structure of their national market. This is essential if we want investing to become a normal and accessible part of financial life in Europe.
At the same time, the MISP also promotes innovation – which is key to making markets more efficient and accessible.
The proposed adjustments to the Distributed Ledger Technology pilot regime will make it more flexible and extend its duration. The MISP also seeks to integrate the DLT into the Central Securities Depositories Regulation.
DLT is not an end in itself. But used well, it can help remove some of the frictions that make capital markets more costly, complex and distant from citizens. By simplifying trading and settlement, improving transparency, and allowing new forms of market infrastructure to develop, DLT can support lower costs, more competition and broader access for investors.
Finally, MISP would make ESMA the single supervisor for major cross-border market infrastructures and crypto-asset service providers. As retail investors increasingly look beyond their domestic markets, they should be able to expect the same high standards of supervision, market integrity and transparency wherever they invest in Europe.
This reduction of fragmentation will also support another important objective - strengthening Europe's public capital markets.
Public listings of our companies should be encouraged whenever it makes economic sense. This is because public markets provide transparency, liquidity and the possibility for broad investor participation. They also come with more robust investor protection guardrails.
By promoting more integrated and liquid markets, and creating a solid base of informed retail investors, we create more incentives for companies to choose to list.
In this context, the implementation of the Listing Act, which was proposed and negotiated in the last mandate, is very relevant. It reduces administrative burdens and makes it easier and more attractive for companies to list in the EU.
Retail investors also got a boost at the end of last year through the political agreement reached on the Retail Investment Strategy.
The RIS was designed to update the existing investor protection framework so that retail investors receive clearer information, better value, and more confidence to participate in capital markets.
And when we look at all of these aspects, the strategy was about creating trust in capital markets – this is what really matters when pursuing greater retail participation.
And this is what I want to come back to in concluding my remarks: trust.
If we want more retail investors to participate in capital markets, they need to trust the system they are being asked to engage with.
They need clear information. They need transparent products. They need fair costs, and confidence that markets are properly supervised.
This is what connects our work on financial literacy, Savings and Investment Accounts, supplementary pensions, Listings Act, the Retail Investment Strategy, and the Market Integration and Supervision Package. Each of these initiatives will make the retail investor journey simpler and more rewarding over the long term.
Europe does not lack savings. But we need to make it easier for citizens to put those savings to work. And we will only succeed if retail investors are placed at the centre of this agenda.
That is what the Savings and Investments Union will deliver: capital markets that citizens can understand, trust, and benefit from.
Thank you.
