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Savings and Investment Union (SIU)

Join us in our commitment to combat financial crime and enhance the integrity of the banking system.

Savings and Investment Union (SIU)

The Savings and Investment Union (SIU) initiative represents a key milestone in strengthening Europe’s financial architecture. Its core objective is to ensure that household and institutional savings are effectively channelled into productive investments, thereby enhancing innovation, growth, and the green and digital transitions.
By deepening and harmonizing EU capital markets, the SIU has the potential to expand financing opportunities for companies—especially SMEs and startups—while providing EU citizens with broader, more diversified investment options.
To unlock these benefits, Europe must address long-standing structural barriers and coordinate reforms at both EU and Member State levels.

Challenges in the Current Framework

Several provisions in the proposed AML/CFT legislative package remain too vague. For instance, the reference to “links with family members” – thereby undermining legal certainty and a harmonised application across Member States. Others are overly broad, such as the current definition of a beneficial owner, which exceeds international best practices and FATF standards.
Moreover, the proposal does not sufficiently address key structural weaknesses of the EU AML framework:

Unequal treatment of financial products

Current frameworks often favour certain investment products over others. Structured products and certificates, despite offering distinct benefits to investors, face disadvantageous treatment compared to funds, bonds, or equities, especially regarding taxation and incentives. This can undermine investor choice and limit portfolio diversification.

Tax fragmentation

Retail investor participation, particularly cross-border, is significantly influenced by divergent national tax regimes. The EU lacks the competence to harmonize taxation directly, yet the resulting fragmentation weakens the effectiveness of capital market initiatives and deters long-term investment.

Complexity in retail investment regulation

The proposed Retail Investment Strategy risks introducing unnecessary administrative burdens without delivering tangible benefits for investors. Excessive complexity can deter participation rather than strengthen investor protection.

Bureaucratic and regulatory overlaps

Europe’s financial system remains constrained by redundant and inconsistent regulatory requirements. These inefficiencies increase compliance costs, reduce competitiveness, and inhibit innovation.

Underdeveloped and fragmented capital markets

EU capital markets lag behind global peers, limiting access to financing for startups and innovative businesses. As a result, large amounts of European capital continue to flow outside the EU—representing lost investment potential for the region’s growth and competitiveness.

Banking sector constraints and limited securitization

Europe’s banking system remains the primary source of financing but is increasingly burdened by stringent prudential requirements and fragmentation. Securitization—a vital mechanism to transfer risk and release capital—remains underutilized due to complex rules and high capital charges.

What Could Be Done More?

In essence, the Savings and Investment Union offers a historic opportunity to unlock Europe’s investment potential and boost competitiveness. Achieving this vision will require a strategic, coordinated, and simplified approach — one that empowers investors, reduces fragmentation, and relieves the financial sector from unnecessary constraints, ensuring that Europe’s savings are effectively transformed into sustainable growth.

Ensure fair and equal treatment of financial products

The EU should establish a level playing field for all instruments, ensuring that products receive equal regulatory and tax treatment.

Promote tax coordination and incentives

While direct harmonization may not be feasible, the EU should coordinate tax-related incentives through guidelines, and best practices. A harmonized approach would encourage cross-border retail investment and strengthen capital market participation.

Simplify retail investment rules

The regulations such as proposed Retail Investment Strategy should focus on simplification, clarity, and tangible investor outcomes. The aim should be to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy while maintaining transparency and proportionate safeguards.

Reduce regulatory complexity

Streamlining EU financial regulations and removing redundancies across the Capital Markets Union and Banking Union initiatives will enhance competitiveness and make compliance more efficient.

Strengthen capital markets and financial literacy

Harmonized rules on insolvency, taxation, and product regulation should be accompanied by initiatives that boost financial literacy and develop accessible savings and investment products for citizens.

Facilitate securitization and assess prudential frameworks

Simplifying due diligence requirements, recalibrating risk weights, and conducting a comprehensive review of EU banking supervision can free up capital and enhance banks’ ability to finance growth.

Encourage cooperation and stakeholder dialogue

Close alignment between EU institutions, Member States, and financial sector stakeholders is essential to design pragmatic and effective SIU measures that can be implemented successfully across the Union. 

Why Transparency Matters

The Government and Stakeholder Affairs team of the RBI Group offers in-depth expertise in the fields of banking, financial services, and economic policy. We provide sound and empirical data and facts on financial service activities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Our priority is a lively, transparent, and open information exchange with our stakeholders, whom we permanently involve in our knowledge transfer. In Vienna, in Brussels, in Europe.

  • Corporate advocacy

    In any given democracy, public debate is crucial in forming political opinions which then influence how governments define their positions in relevant policy areas. These positions finally translate into regulation that effects all of us.

    Corporate advocacy

    In any given democracy, public debate is crucial in forming political opinions which then influence how governments define their positions in relevant policy areas. These positions finally translate into regulation that effects all of us.

    Evidently, there are a significant number of stakeholders that participate in public debate, most notably political parties, trade unions, NGOs, grass root initiatives or scientists all together representing a wide range of ideas, beliefs, and causes.

    Whereas in the past, corporate businesses have been reluctant to contribute to and engage in public debate, a significant number of businesses have come to understand and appreciate their role in society more and more as a corporate citizen. As a result, they feel encouraged to be increasingly vocal about questions that are relevant to them as much as to society at large.

    We are happy to bring our ideas and beliefs to the table and discuss the impact of our business on society. Here we can show, how our banking contributes to wealth, prosperity, and sustainability in the countries we work in. Just as much, we are strongly interested in challenging ideas we feel may have adverse or negative effects on social, economic, and environmental issues that are of concern to us.

    Traditional lobbying is only one aspect of how we go about to by explaining our positions to interest groups, regulatory authorities, politicians or other stakeholders. Our overall approach is more of what we call corporate advocacy. And this is not only about what we expect others to do for us. Being open for dialogue is just as much about learning from people with others perceptions and beliefs.

  • Transparency register numbers and Code of Conduct

    Transparency register numbers of Raiffeisen Bank International:

    • Europe: EU Transparency register: 33858106461-10;
    • Austria: Lobbying- und Interessenvertretungsregister: LIVR-00104

    Transparency register numbers and Code of Conduct

    Transparency register numbers of Raiffeisen Bank International:

    • Europe: EU Transparency register: 33858106461-10;
    • Austria: Lobbying- und Interessenvertretungsregister: LIVR-00104
    • Germany: Lobbyregister des Deutschen Bundestag: R005510

    Code of Conduct

    The RBI Group Code of Conduct is the foundation of our corporate culture. This Code of Conduct is internally binding for the RBI Group, but does not create any rights or obligations of third parties vis-à-vis members of the RBI Group. Persons who provide services to or otherwise work for the RBI Group and all other business partners of the RBI Group are expected to agree to the RBI Group Supplier Code of Conduct as a mandatory part of the contract and to comply with all rules and standards contained therein.

    Open RBI Code of Conduct page

  • UN Global Compact

    We are one of the signatory companies of the UN Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC is the world’s largest initiative that helps companies align their practices with a sustainable and inclusive future.

    UN Global Compact

    We are one of the signatory companies of the UN Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC is the world’s largest initiative that helps companies align their practices with a sustainable and inclusive future.

    The UNGC initiative is based on CEOs’ commitments to adhere to universal sustainability principles and offers a principles-based framework and network.

    Over the course of more than two decades, the UN Global Compact has mobilized companies around the world to align their activities and strategies with ten principles and enabled change by reporting on their progress in adhering to these principles. The UN Global Compact has evolved from a group of 44 companies to what is now the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative and a global movement of more than 18,000 companies and 3,000 non-corporate stakeholders in over 160 countries.

    The current Strategy 2024–2025 continues this path and reinforces the expectations of companies when integrating the ten principles into their operations.

    The United Nations Global Compact is uniquely positioned to support companies as they align their practices for a sustainable and inclusive future. With the broad-based support of all 193 participant countries of the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Global Compact remains the single, global normative authority and reference point for action and leadership within a growing global corporate sustainability movement.

    Our strategy intends to leverage that position and elevate expectations of how businesses will embed all Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact into their operations. These Ten Principles — covering human rights, labour rights, the environment and anti-corruption — are intrinsic for the sustainability of business, people and the planet. They offer companies of all sizes a blueprint for contributing towards achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement.

    We are confident that, through this strategy extension to 2025, the UN Global Compact will help the business community make the progress it needs to make so that it – and the rest of the world – will achieve the goals needed to ensure a better life for all.

    Together, we are the UN Global Compact, uniting business for a better world.

     

    Our Contribution

    As a signatory company, RBI is not only committed to consistently adhering to the ten UNGC principles of responsible business – with the core areas of human rights, labor standards, environmental protection and the fight against corruption – but also expects the associated attitude of global responsibility from all employees and managers as well as from partners and suppliers.

    Read more about UN Global Compact

  • Economic footprint of RBI in CEE countries

    RBI – as part of the Austrian Raiffeisen Banking Group – is an important participant on the European banking market, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). 

    Economic footprint of Raiffeisen Bank International in CEE countries

    RBI – as part of the Austrian Raiffeisen Banking Group – is an important participant on the European banking market, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In recent years, the banking sector has undergone numerous changes. In environmental conditions, such as regulatory measures to safeguard financial market stability in Austria but also in CEE, a longer-term low interest rate environment and adjustments due to the progressive digitalization (e. g. further development of internet banking services) and changes in the banking sector. For this reason, the objective is to determine the employment and economic contributions of RBI for all CEE countries (including Austria) in which it operates.

    Read more on our Annual Reports

Want to learn more about other initiatives?

  • Digitalization & Level Playing Field

    The digital revolution and its new technologies are changing the world fundamentally. Private and business lives are impacted dramatically. In this phase, Europe must make the best use of digitalization to maintain competitiveness and global future readiness in a world where all the interrelated digital solutions are in play. 

  • EU Enlargement & Neighborhood Policy

    The Western Balkans countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia are of significant cultural, social, economic, and geostrategic importance for the Union. They are home to nearly 18 million people and eager to join the EU.