„La mappatura dei prodotti finanziari nella prospettiva della tutela del risparmiatore“: pubblicato il Quaderno giuridico Consob n. 28 (27 aprile 2023)

The legal Consob journal Quaderno giuridico n. 28 discusses the mapping of financial products within the MiFID adequacy rule for the protection of investors.
While the EU legislature and literature have mainly focused on customer profiling, product mapping has been left to the diligence of service providers.
The MIFID II directive on investment services has strengthened safeguards for investors who invest in financial instruments through authorized intermediaries, such as suitability and appropriateness rules, and introduced rules on product governance.
However, there are still areas for improvement, such as managing conflicts of interest that arise when financial product issuers are also distributors, controls on the activity of “mapping“ financial products when outsourced to third parties without adequate organisational safeguards, and uncertainty in the application of rules governing financial product profiling, which could result in inconsistent investor protection across the EU.
The latest legal journal from Consob highlights critical elements concerning the mis-selling of financial products to retail clients. The study aims to contribute to the debate on European regulations and points out that for the adequacy rule to function correctly in minimizing mis-selling risks, it is necessary to accompany the customer profiling done through the MIFID questionnaire with an appropriate mapping of financial products. However, the current regulatory framework focuses on profiling investment service clients, leaving the mapping of financial products to the diligence of intermediaries.
CONSOB’s supervisory and informative activities have revealed various pathological aspects of product mapping. The journal examines the current state of European regulations, with specific insights into some countries such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands, showing that the issues identified domestically also affect the entire EU.
Lastly, the journal outlines the limitations of the current regulations in addressing future challenges and offers evolutionary perspectives.
To improve the implementation of the adequacy rule, the study suggests creating a standardised set of data and information on financial product profiling at European level, which can be shared through the ESAP platform (ESMA will provide access to it on 31 December 2024). Additionally, the study recommends using artificial intelligence to determine and share profiling data and information, reducing costs for companies.