It’s published •update
The coalition of savings and investments is “the idea of creating opportunities for people to be invested with higher returns, especially when considering long-term savings,” she said.
“We issue recommendations to member countries to create savings and investment accounts, which will allow simple, low-cost (…) and tax incentives to be made available, and more investments are drawn to this type of investment.”
Investing in capital markets involves risk
The European Commissioner acknowledges that an alternative to time deposits is investments in high-risk financial products in the medium and long term.
“We recommend Member States that the products offered are clearly suited to the profiles of retail investors. But yes, investments in capital markets involve risk. There is no capital guarantee.”
However, if the money is low interest rate, bank customers are losing money due to inflation.
“Perhaps they’re not aware of it because if they put 1,000 euros in their deposit, they’ll receive 1,000 euros of interest at the end of that period. The truth is that you can buy less for that 1,000 euros, Lewis Albuquerque.
Not in protectionism in banking
As in Portugal, as the European Commissioners have warnings, regarding the protectionist status of some EU governments regarding mergers and acquisitions of foreign banks.
“In fact, there’s a very focused protectionist attitude about the national perspective. We’ve said we need to change our way of thinking. We have to understand that being in the home is European,” she said.
“You know, the committee will not comment on any particular case. But when it comes to banking issues, there are already bank associations that will involve all countries in the Euro region, and there are rules defined that must be followed for the merger and acquisition of banking institutions.
A merger of European banking?
European companies and banks need to get bigger and more scales to compete with the US and other regions, Maria Lewis Albuquerque argues.
“To compete with the US and China, we need the muscles representing the entire European Union to compete with the large international bloc, not their respective members.”
“None of us is large enough, or even the largest, or even strong enough to face that level of competition. So, in that sense, we need companies and banks that can compete with large global financial institutions to provide better service at a more competitive price.”
