12. Believes that consumer protection does not necessarily entail large volumes of information and that the focus should rather be on the quality and comprehensibility of information enabling proper decision-making – information must be relevant, accurate, comparable, user-friendly, reliable and timely; is concerned that the multiplicity and complexity of customer information might not ultimately serve real customer needs; argues for a balance to b
e struck to provide consumers with the information they need to make informed choices, and to understand the risks involved, while not unnecessarily burdening businesses, especially SMEs; en
...[+++]courages further digitalisation of information; stresses that financial advisers and employees providing consumer advice at financial institutions should be given the training and time necessary to be able to serve customers in an accurate way; notes the importance of effective supervisory powers to intervene in the marketing of products where necessary; points to the need for a European initiative for more and better financial education by no later than the end of 2016, taking account of the specific needs of each Member State, also to ensure full awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of capital market investments; underlines also that financial education should be targeted towards SMEs, teaching them how to use capital markets; believes in the benefit of better transparency in order to enable companies, investors and consumers to understand the comparative costs and benefits of different services provided by market participants, but also notes that more transparency has to come with added value for customers or competent supervisors and be targeted towards the practical use of the information and data; ...