ESAs launch survey on environmental and/or social financial product templates
The European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA - ESAs) published today a survey seeking public feedback on presentational aspects of product templates, pursuant to Article 8(3), Article 9(5) and Article 11(4) of the Regulation on sustainability‐related disclosures in the financial services (SFDR). The survey is open for comments until 16 October 2020.
The ESAs propose to standardise the disclosure of information for financial products that promote environmental and/or social characteristics or have a sustainable objective. The use of such mandatory templates will improve comparability of different financial products in different EU Member States and are intended to be included in existing disclosures provided by Alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs), Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITSs), insurance undertakings, Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORPs) or providers of pan-European Personal Pensions Products (PEPPs).
In particular, the ESAs are inviting stakeholders to comment on the layout of the templates, which reflects the text of the draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) from the recent public consultation on the SFDR that ran from 23 April until 1 September 2020.
The final content of the templates is subject to the outcome of a concurrent consumer testing exercise and the ESAs’ final report on the draft RTS under SFDR.