In 2022, the European Commission published its EU Retail Investment Strategy (RIS) legislative proposal as a response to the observation that retail investors are underinvesting in EU financial markets. The view is that EU retail customers face challenges with a poor value for money (VFM) ratio, lack of investment transparency and understandable information, and conflict of interests between the manufacturers and distributors of retail investment products. The main objective is to restore investor confidence by increasing their protection and interests.
The original Commission proposals are broad and deep in scope and constitute an overhaul of key conduct of business requirements in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) (including product governance, inducements, suitability and appropriateness, costs and charges, client categorisation) as well as Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPS).
While the European Parliament and Council finalised their respective mandates in the first half of 2024 and, to varying degrees, proposed changes to the original Commission proposals, trilogue negotiations only formally started in April 2025 after a long pause due to the political sensitivity of the file, combined with the EU institutional changeover.
During 2025 and 2026 the file has been re-assessed under a simplification lens. Despite December 2025 political agreement, the final formulation of the package remains unresolved as of April 2026.
Beyond RIS, relevant investor protection initiatives include the ESMA call for evidence on retail investor journey and the Commission call for evidence on Savings and Investment Account, the latter part of the wider Savings and Investment Union initiative.
