The EU’s occupational pensions regulator has appointed a 21-strong panel of specialists to help it with its policy work on so-called Level 2 implementing measures for the pan-European personal pension product (PEPP) regulation.

According to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), the group will inform the regulator’s policy work on the measures, test proposals, and “act as a sounding board” to help EIOPA deliver on its mandate. 

“To deliver on the forthcoming PEPP Regulation’s policy perspective to design a PEPP that exhibits high quality product features around information provision, risk-mitigating techniques and a cost cap for the basic PEPP, the feedback and support from practitioners is important,” said EIOPA in a statement.

“With the insights of the expert practitioner panel, EIOPA will develop superior solutions and smart policy advice that incentivises financial innovation for the benefit of the European consumers.”

The PEPP regulation was approved by the European Parliament in April and by EU leaders in June. 

Stakeholders have emphasised that the design of the technical measures to accompany the PEPP regulation will be key in determining its take-up.

“[T]he framework must be structured to ensure its success, including rules around the fee cap and risk mitigation,” said Anna Driggs, director and associate chief counsel for global funds policy at ICI Global, the international arm of US asset management body the Investment Company Institute.

“Defining these sensibly will be critical to developing a product that asset managers will offer and, importantly, savers will want to utilise.”

‘Extraordinary group’

EIOPA said it had appointed to the panel “an extraordinary group of high-level experts with a diverse set of experiences and expertise, from all the different sectors of eligible PEPP providers”.

It includes representatives of consumer and industry associations, asset managers, insurers, pension funds, and academia.

In alphabetical order, the members of the group and their affiliation are:

  • Jean-Paul Andre-Dumont, director for the Luxembourg business of consultancy Forsides
  • Paul Le Bihan, Union Mutualist Retraite
  • Emanuele Maria Carluccio, University of Verona
  • Sebastian Görgl, Union Investment
  • Edward Hiller, Fidelity
  • Olav Jones, InsuranceEurope
  • Herman Kappelle, Aegon
  • Til Klein, Vantik, a German pensiontech company
  • Axel Kleinlein, Bund der Versicherten, German consumer protection association for insurance policyholders
  • Christian Lemaire, Amundi
  • Kristine Lomanovska, SEB in Latvia
  • Andrew Marker, Vanguard
  • Aidan McLoughlin, independent trustee
  • Jasper De Meyer, Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs
  • Simone Miotto, PensionsEurope
  • Carlo Parodi, Intesa Sanpaolo
  • Hugo Prenn, Uniqa, an insurance group in Austria and central and eastern Europe
  • Tobias Rieck, Allianz
  • Jens Rosendahl Frederiksen, PFA Pension
  • Stefan Voicu, Better Finance
  • Piotr Wrzesinski, PIU, the Polish insurance association 

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