| | PRIPS | | Financial products are sold to retail investors in the EU under different legal wrappers/forms and through different sales channels. The European Commission is seeking ways to provide the same investor protection to these retail investors independently of the legal form of the product or the sales channel. The European Commission is pursuing this aim through the PRIPs Initiative, the Packaged Retail Investment Products Initiative. With PRIPs, the European Commission seeks greater harmonization regarding mandatory disclosure and selling practices. PRIPs has been split into two parts, the part regarding mandatory disclosure and the part regarding selling practices.
For mandatory disclosure, the publication of a Commission proposal is expected for early July 2012. The proposal will most likely provide that investment products shall be sold accompanied by a key information document (KID) which provides retail investors with short, clear and comparable information written in accordance with a common standard; this will allow them to better understand the risk and costs associated with an investment decision and compare different investment products.
For selling practices, proposals stemming from the PRIPs initiative have been included into the revision of the MiFID Directive and will be included in the revision of the IMD Directive. |
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