On 12 March 2026, ESMA published its takeaways from the 2025 Call for Evidence on the retail investor journey.
Taking into account the input from stakeholders, ESMA outlines a number of actions and operational improvements it will take forward to make it easier for retail investors to access suitable investment opportunities.
ESMA will focus on three areas:
As part of this follow up work, consumer testing will be used to inform and validate improvements to disclosures and digital investor journeys, including for mobile-first users.
Responses indicate that retail investors encounter multiple regulatory and non‑regulatory barriers when starting to invest. There is therefore not one magic solution to make the EU’s capital markets more accessible.
Stakeholders highlighted the following aspects to be addressed:
Disclosures: too long, too complex, not digital-first. Stakeholders support the need for appropriate disclosures but find them not sufficiently effective due to volume, complexity, and fragmentation of information. They call for clearer and layered information, delivered in mobile-friendly formats.
Suitability and appropriateness assessments: valuable but heavy. Stakeholders value the investor protection benefits of suitability and appropriateness requirements, but ask for simplification and proportionality, particularly for simple products and those distributed through digital channels. Many also consider the integration of sustainability preferences as being overly complex.
Beyond regulation: trust, costs, and taxes matter. Respondents also highlighted several non-regulatory obstacles to investing: lack of trust, high fees and limited comparability of products, low financial literacy and cultural factors, and complex taxation, especially for cross-border investments.
The report will guide ESMA’s future technical advice on MIFID II delegated acts and potential updates to its guidelines, ensuring alignment with the final outcome of the Retail Investment Strategy (RIS).
On 1 April 2026, published Questions and Answers (Q&As) on the onboarding of data contributors to the EU’s Consolidated Tapes (CTs), and on the operational rules for the Consolidated Tape Providers (CTPs). The goal is to increase certainty for all market participants in anticipation of the go-live of the EU’s CTs for bonds and for equities.
The Q&As are available via ESMA’s online Q&A tool.
In collaboration with National Competent Authorities, ESMA reminds that trading venues and Authorised Publication Arrangements have the legal obligation to contribute data to the CTPs from the CTs’ go‑live.
In this context, ESMA expects the relevant data contributors to engage with the selected CTPs ahead of their formal authorisation, to ensure that the data transmission setup is in place before the CTs’ go‑live. This cooperation may include agreeing on the relevant transmission protocols and conducting connectivity and end‑to‑end testing.
ESMA expects the selected CTPs to put appropriate arrangements in place to safeguard the confidentiality and integrity of information received during this preparatory phase.
On 16 March 2026, the EU Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) published a reporting package for its data collection and testing exercise, including an interpretative note, reporting template and recording and slides from a webinar explaining the requirements and next steps.
The exercise will test and calibrate AMLA’s risk assessment models for credit and financial institutions, which serve two purposes: to inform the selection, taking place in 2027, of up to 40 entities for AMLA’s direct supervision starting in 2028, and to ensure that money laundering risks of credit and financial institutions are assessed consistently by supervisors across the EU.
All entities taking part in this exercise have already been notified by their national competent authorities.
AMLA developed the reporting package in close cooperation with national supervisors and the sampled entities. Following an initial feedback round, AMLA circulated a draft version to sampled entities via national competent authorities, allowing them to familiarise themselves with the template and begin internal data mapping. The reporting package published today incorporates input from national supervisors and the private sector and serves as the reference package for the testing exercise.
AMLA published Participating firms are required to submit data by 22 April 2026.
On 16 March 2026, the EU Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) published a reporting package for its data collection and testing exercise, including an interpretative note, reporting template and recording and slides from a webinar explaining the requirements and next steps.
The exercise will test and calibrate AMLA’s risk assessment models for credit and financial institutions, which serve two purposes: to inform the selection, taking place in 2027, of up to 40 entities for AMLA’s direct supervision starting in 2028, and to ensure that money laundering risks of credit and financial institutions are assessed consistently by supervisors across the EU.
All entities taking part in this exercise have already been notified by their national competent authorities.
AMLA developed the reporting package in close cooperation with national supervisors and the sampled entities. Following an initial feedback round, AMLA circulated a draft version to sampled entities via national competent authorities, allowing them to familiarise themselves with the template and begin internal data mapping. The reporting package published today incorporates input from national supervisors and the private sector and serves as the reference package for the testing exercise.
AMLA published Participating firms are required to submit data by 22 April 2026.
On 16 March 2026, the EU Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) published a reporting package for its data collection and testing exercise, including an interpretative note, reporting template and recording and slides from a webinar explaining the requirements and next steps.
The exercise will test and calibrate AMLA’s risk assessment models for credit and financial institutions, which serve two purposes: to inform the selection, taking place in 2027, of up to 40 entities for AMLA’s direct supervision starting in 2028, and to ensure that money laundering risks of credit and financial institutions are assessed consistently by supervisors across the EU.
All entities taking part in this exercise have already been notified by their national competent authorities.
AMLA developed the reporting package in close cooperation with national supervisors and the sampled entities. Following an initial feedback round, AMLA circulated a draft version to sampled entities via national competent authorities, allowing them to familiarise themselves with the template and begin internal data mapping. The reporting package published today incorporates input from national supervisors and the private sector and serves as the reference package for the testing exercise.
AMLA published Participating firms are required to submit data by 22 April 2026.
On 16 March 2026, the EU Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) published a reporting package for its data collection and testing exercise, including an interpretative note, reporting template and recording and slides from a webinar explaining the requirements and next steps.
The exercise will test and calibrate AMLA’s risk assessment models for credit and financial institutions, which serve two purposes: to inform the selection, taking place in 2027, of up to 40 entities for AMLA’s direct supervision starting in 2028, and to ensure that money laundering risks of credit and financial institutions are assessed consistently by supervisors across the EU.
All entities taking part in this exercise have already been notified by their national competent authorities.
AMLA developed the reporting package in close cooperation with national supervisors and the sampled entities. Following an initial feedback round, AMLA circulated a draft version to sampled entities via national competent authorities, allowing them to familiarise themselves with the template and begin internal data mapping. The reporting package published today incorporates input from national supervisors and the private sector and serves as the reference package for the testing exercise.
AMLA published Participating firms are required to submit data by 22 April 2026.
