Responsible finance: 41% of French citizens are interested

The first survey, conducted in June 2019 by Audirep on a representative sample of 1028 people in France, demonstrates that the majority of people factor sustainable development challenges into their daily lives.

The main observations included the Following:

• More than seven out of ten respondents think that it is important for financial institutions to take energy transition and sustainable development into account;
• Responsible financial products are still largely unknown. One out of two respondents would like to know more about these products, about how they work, their advantages and drawbacks as compared with traditional investments;
• Four out of ten people in France consider that investments of this type are worthy of interest. This interest is more pronounced among those aged under 35;
• The primary lever for reinforcing trust in responsible investments is better information; and there is limited trust in labels.

The second qualitative study, conducted by the CSA institute on 15 non-expert investors, served as an in-depth test of the readability and perceived usefulness of the marketing and regulatory documents of socially responsible investment (SRI) funds.

The study showed that:

• Investors do not always understand the concepts that structure responsible investment, such as “governance” or “extra-financial analysis”. This is all the more so since these terms are rarely defined;
• Investors would like the key investor information document (KIID) to contain more explanations about the fund’s selection criteria and the specific nature of the companies and related projects;
• Investors expressed their appreciation of extra-financial reports, especially the sections that give the full list of the companies selected by the fund, examples of the methodology used in selecting the companies and information about the actual projects carried out by these companies.

The AMF is committed to sustainable finance in many areas such as the accompaniment of stakeholders, supervision and monitoring. In their day-to-day monitoring, the AMF teams assess whether the KIIDs and prospectuses of authorised funds that include an extra-financial component is clear, accurate and non-misleading. The PACTE law has reinforced the powers of the regulator, which is attentive to the quality of the information provided by asset management companies concerning their investment strategy and management of climate-related risks. The regulator also supports investors through various educational content accessible in the retail investor section of the AMF website.

About the AMF
The AMF is an independent public authority responsible for ensuring that savings invested in Financial products are protected and that investors are provided with adequate information. The AMF also supervises the orderly operations of markets. Visit our website https://www.amf-france.org