{"id":611427,"date":"2026-07-30T09:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/611427\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T09:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:41:18","slug":"concerns-over-consumer-protection-in-simon-harriss-promised-investment-accounts-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/611427\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerns over consumer protection in Simon Harris\u2019s promised investment accounts \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumer protection has featured very little in talk about T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris\u2019s<\/a> proposed new personal investment accounts<\/a>, the Society of Actuaries<\/a> has warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hear little discussion about how the consumer protections appropriate to individual savers and investors should be brought to bear in the scheme,\u201d the organisation said in a letter to Harris and Minister of State Robert Troy<\/a> published on its website on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Actuaries specialise in analysing and mitigating risk.<\/p>\n

Under the auspices of European Union moves to create a cross-bloc savings and investment union<\/a>, Harris has announced his intention to create a new type of tax-efficient, easy-access investment account.<\/p>\n

The aim to to persuade Irish households to make better use of at least some of the \u20ac170 billion held on deposit with Ireland\u2019s big banks, earning little or no interest.<\/p>\n

The Minister is expected to deliver details of how the scheme will operate in the October budget.<\/p>\n

The Society of Actuaries has welcomed the plan to introduce investment accounts for consumers and support better use of household savings, but said it was concerned about the prominence in discussions of stock picking \u2013 targeting shares in individual companies.<\/p>\n

Their letter refers back to the catastrophic experience of many investors who put their money into Irish \u201cblue-chip\u201d bank stocks before the financial crash \u2013 much of it retirement lump sums. Bank stocks were regarded as a low-risk investment with the added attraction of regular dividend income. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen those shares collapsed in value, the concentration of savings in a small number of stocks left ordinary investors far worse off than a diversified portfolio would have,\u201d the society\u2019s letter said.<\/p>\n

It said EU rules classed investment in individual company shares as \u201cnon-complex … so buying them execution-only attracts none of the safeguards that apply to most retail investment in Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

While \u201cbuyer beware\u201d might make sense in a market of experienced investors, it cautions against \u201ca State-promoted, well-publicised, potentially incentivised investment scheme that has the potential to draw significantly more inexperienced consumers toward concentrated positions than is currently the case\u201d.<\/p>\n

The actuaries\u2019 letter advised that the proposed investment account design should actively encourage savers to put their money into \u201cwell-diversified investment solutions\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese offer first-time and less experienced investors a genuine opportunity for growth and channel capital to enterprise just as directly as single-stock holdings without exposing investors to the concentration risks that have been experienced in the past and that are known to have a detrimental impact on consumer behaviour and investor outcomes,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Finally, the society advised that the design of any investment accounts should be \u201cgrounded in the current level of financial literacy among Irish savers, not the level we hope to reach in time\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cMeaningfully raising financial literacy will require sustained effort over many years from Government, industry and educators alike,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumer protection has featured very little in talk about T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris\u2019s proposed new personal investment accounts, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,2003,17,72170,163128,44,66754],"class_list":["post-611427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-investment","tag-ireland","tag-robert-troy","tag-savings-and-investment-union","tag-simon-harris","tag-society-of-actuaries-in-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117008274995103431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}