Investors will be asked from August 1 if they have environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives, as a result of a new MiFID II provision, said Răzvan Szilagy, CFA, vice president of CFA Society Romania & CEO, Raiffeisen AM.

“I believe that from August 1 we will have new MiFID II provisions with the greatest focus on the ESG area. Basically, what is wanted is that investors, those who benefit from consulting services to be asked very briefly if they have ESG related objectives or not. In other words, when the consulting process begins, the question arises: do you want to do some ESG or not, and I think this is very important because the money should be able to be channeled to the products we’re talking about now,” said Răzvan Szilagy, at the conference organized by CFA Society Romania with the support of the National Bank of Romania, according to Agerpres.

In his turn, Mihai Purcărea, CFA, Member of the Board of CFA Society Romania & CEO, BRD AM, said that globally 40% of the assets under management are in ESG products, an area that will continue to grow.

Asked about the risk of greenwashing (misinformation of people in a certain industry – e.n.), Mihai Purcărea appreciated that this is a very tangible one. He noted that in 2019, theoretically green funds in Europe were at 67%, but then dropped to 40% as a result of changes in legislation.

“The risk is still there, but the legislation at least at the level of the European Union is much more established and the rules are common. From this year it will be possible to compare investments, whether we are talking about bonds or funds or other investments, on some standard indicators and it will be easy for anyone to see whether or not the rules are followed, which was impossible until now because maybe we can look at a P&L, see a profit, a balance sheet, but we have no idea how much paper consumes bank X or how polluting company Y is. But in the future we will have exactly all the figures in a beautiful, transparent table,” said Mihai Purcărea.