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The product would allow individuals to choose between several investment options and ensure providers maintain a robust governance framework and administritive systems. Any product that meets these standards could be distributed throughout Europe with an EU passport.
The report, which will be distributed to EU policy-makers and instiutions, contains a set of key recommended standards that a European personal pension product should comply with in order to be certified as an OCERP, and sold throughout Europe. It also presents different legislative approach scenarios to provide an EU passport to the OCERP and to regulate the conditions under which financial institutions could provide OCERPs across Europe.
The creation of an EU framework for personal pension products would also contribute to channelling retail investors’ savings towards the proposed European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs) recently proposed by the European Commission.
Peter De Proft, Director General of EFAMA, comments: “The proposed high standards of consumer protection, governance and distribution will associate the OCERP with a high-quality EU label. As a blueprint for a European brand of personal pension products, the creation of the OCERP would help overcome the current fragmentation of the European pensions market and, thus, improve the cost-effectiveness of these products and their portability between Member States. By proposing that banks, insurers, pension funds and asset managers expand their product offering towards the OCERP, EFAMA proposes to follow an inclusive approach for the creation of personal pension products to serve the interests of all European citizens”.
Peter De Proft continues: “EFAMA believes that the OCERP concept could play a supportive and meaningful role in channelling retirement savings towards long-term investments. We recognise that there are legal, prudential and tax hurdles for the emergence of a single market for personal pension products and this report does not set out to provide clear-cut solutions for each of these issues. Instead, we will look to use it as a working document in our continued dialogue with European legislators and decision makers.”