Despite the growing interest and importance of sustainable investing, most EU citizens often find it difficult to navigate this relatively new investment landscape.

EFAMA has published a brochure in which we explore what sustainable investing is; what investment strategies are available; what impact you can have as on investor; what questions you should be asking your self and your financial advisor; and how to get started.

EFAMA's Annual Review highlights our key achievements over the past 12 months and provides a useful overview of the main topics we cover.

The Review is structured around the work of our Standing Committees and Taskforces. These bodies are the lifeblood of our Association as they develop sound, unified and evidence-based common positions around relevant EU/global initiatives and campaigns.

The Fact Book is our flagship publication. It provides in-depth analysis of trends in the European investment fund industry, including extensive statistics and information about products, asset classes and distribution across all markets. It also includes a complete overview of regulatory developments across 28 European countries.

A digital version of the Fact Book is made freely available on the EFAMA website. An Excel-based statistical package, containing more than 50 tables with historical time series on net assets, net sales and number of UCITS and AIFs at the country level, is available for purchase.  

EFAMA's 'Asset Management in Europe' report provides an in-depth analysis of recent trends, focusing on where investment funds and discretionary mandates are managed in Europe.

The latest edition (December 2022) has several new features, including: an extensive section on the role of asset managers in promoting ESG, including in discretionary mandates; concrete examples of how asset managers integrate ESG into sovereign debt analysis and support sustainable projects through green bond investments, including insights from abrdn, Allianz Global Investors, APG, AXA IM, BlackRock, Candriam, Generali Investments, Ostrum Asset Management, Ninety One, Nordea Asset Management, and Pictet Asset Management; data on clients in both investment funds and discretionary mandates; an analysis by McKinsey & Company on the future of sustainable investing; a contribution by Cerulli Associates on how European insurers use third-party asset managers.

Financial literacy is essential for making sound decisions when managing savings. If European citizens do not understand financial concepts such as risk diversification, compound interest and real rate of return, they won’t know where to start or what to ask should they wish to invest their savings. A lack of sufficient financial literacy in most European countries helps explain why the vast majority of households don’t directly invest any of their savings in the capital markets.

EFAMA's Investor Education Platform has now produced an animated brochure titled ‘Investing for a better future – 5 tips to do more with your savings’ to help get people started with investing. It has been translated into several European languages.

With European government no longer able to provide financial security to support citizens in later years, saving for retirement is key. Individuals need to save enough for retirement to ensure adequate income in old age.

EFAMA helps by raising awareness of the importance of saving for retirement and encouraging European authorities to further modernise relevant EU legislation. This includes strengthening competition in the occupational and personal pension markets, and fostering cross-border activities of pension providers and asset managers. Such legislation should seek to create economies of scale, to benefit savers. 

EFAMA is a co-initiator of the European Retirement Week.