The EU’s Savings and Investments Union is increasingly moving beyond a policy ambition and into the operating environment of Europe’s asset managers, fund-service providers and distributors. Its success could accelerate the convergence of markets, products and infrastructure across the continent.
Europe has no shortage of savings. The challenge is turning those savings into productive investment efficiently, while allowing investors, asset managers and businesses to operate across borders without unnecessary duplication. That is the central premise of the European Union’s Savings and Investments Union (SIU), launched in 2025 as the successor to the Capital Markets Union agenda. The European Commission describes the SIU as a framework designed to improve the way the EU financial system connects savings with productive investment, while giving citizens greater opportunities to participate in capital markets.
For the asset management industry, that objective goes directly to the heart of market convergence. The European Commission’s current SIU programme includes measures intended to reduce fragmentation in fund distribution, improve supervisory convergence and make it easier for asset managers and financial-market infrastructures to achieve scale across member states. The significance for asset managers is clear. Europe has a single market framework for investment funds, but operating across 27 jurisdictions can still involve different supervisory approaches, national requirements and operational processes.
Nicolas Calcoen, deputy CEO of Amundi, highlighted the issue after participating in an Association Europe-Finances-Régulations discussion on European supervision. Amundi, he noted, manages thousands of European funds and is supervised by multiple national authorities. “A more consistent & efficient supervision at the European level” could reduce fragmentation and facilitate cross-border distribution, Calcoen said, while stressing the importance of maintaining an efficient “time to market”.
That distinction is important. The convergence agenda is not simply about creating larger European financial institutions. It is also about making it possible for existing institutions to operate more efficiently across borders.
For fund-service providers, the implications extend into the architecture supporting funds. Ireland provides a useful example. The country has developed into one of Europe’s major international fund centres, with third-party management companies, administrators, depositaries, technology providers and other service firms supporting funds distributed internationally.
Margaret Franklin, CFA, president and CEO of CFA Institute, has similarly highlighted the need to make Europe’s investment system more accessible to savers. Speaking at a June 2025 event focused on the Savings and Investments Union, Franklin said: “The financial industry must supply individuals across Europe with the investment and retirement savings options they need to invest in their futures.” She argued that fragmented markets, complex regulations and the industry’s reliance on traditional banking channels were limiting the potential of Europe’s capital markets.
This is where the SIU begins to overlap with the convergence of public and private markets. A European investor does not necessarily need a completely new financial system. What is increasingly required is an investment ecosystem in which UCITS, ETFs, private-market funds, pension products and other vehicles can be accessed through efficient distribution channels and supported by common infrastructure.
Distribution may ultimately prove one of the most important pieces of that puzzle. More than 80% of UCITS and more than half of AIFs in the EEA are distributed indirectly through credit institutions and investment firms, according to ESMA. Distribution therefore remains a critical connection between the manufacturers of investment products and the investors whose savings the SIU is seeking to mobilise.
The evolution of ETF distribution provides an early illustration of what greater convergence could look like. When Euronext launched its pan-European ETF Europe marketplace in September 2025, it described the initiative as part of its contribution to building a European Savings and Investments Union. The platform brings listing, trading, clearing and settlement together across its European markets.
Paul Young, head of ETF Capital Markets at Vanguard, welcomed the initiative, saying that “reducing the cost and complexity for investors remains key”. The comment captures a fundamental SIU challenge: European integration only becomes meaningful for savers if it translates into a simpler and more accessible investment journey.
That could have consequences well beyond ETFs. As distribution infrastructure becomes more integrated, the distinction between domestic and cross-border products can become less significant. A fund manager in one member state can potentially reach investors in another more efficiently; a distributor can offer a broader product range; and service providers can build technology and operating models that work across multiple jurisdictions.
The same principle is increasingly visible in private markets. European policymakers want greater institutional and retail participation in long-term investment, while asset managers are developing evergreen, semi-liquid and other structures designed to broaden access to private assets. The SIU therefore sits at an important intersection between regulation, fund structures, distribution and infrastructure.
Technology adds another layer. Tokenisation, digital fund registers and distributed-ledger technology could eventually further reduce the distinction between traditional investment infrastructure and digital markets. Ireland’s emerging work on tokenised funds is one example of how established fund domiciles are considering that next stage of development. The convergence is therefore not simply geographical. It is also structural.
Public and private markets, asset management and wealth management, traditional funds and digital assets, and fund manufacturing and distribution are increasingly becoming parts of a connected investment ecosystem. The SIU provides the policy framework for reducing some of the barriers between those components. Whether it ultimately delivers a genuinely integrated European capital market will depend on implementation, national reforms, market infrastructure and the willingness of industry participants to invest in scalable operating models.