Investment products and access: what changed
Last updated: August 12, 2026
These entries cover what investors can actually buy and through which channel. The direction is consistent: wrappers that were institutional or unavailable ten years ago are now open to ordinary savers, and the cost of reaching them has collapsed.
Index products led. ETF savings plans became the default way to build a portfolio in Germany, hitting record levels in November 2024, driven by neobrokers offering them at or near zero cost. Around the same time, assets that had sat outside regulated wrappers moved inside them: Toronto listed the world's first Bitcoin ETF in February 2021, and the SEC approved US spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024.
Tax-advantaged accounts multiplied. Italy introduced PIR in 2017 and PIR alternativi in 2020; Canada launched the FHSA in April 2023; Germany's Altersvorsorgedepot follows in 2026. The EU recommended in September 2025 that member states build national savings and investment accounts along the same lines, which suggests more of these rather than fewer.
Governments also went directly to retail savers. Italy's BTP Valore, launched in June 2023, is a government bond issued for households only, and Series I savings bonds in the United States paid a record 9.62 per cent in May 2022. Both are reminders that in a high-rate period the state can be the cheapest counterparty a small investor has. At the other end of the risk spectrum, ELTIF 2.0 opened private-market funds to retail investors from January 2024 — the entry in this section that most deserves scepticism, since illiquidity is a cost that does not appear in a fee table.
Changes in this section
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25 entries
- Trump Accounts open for contributionsUnited States
- Political agreement on EU Retail Investment StrategyEuropean Union
- One Big Beautiful Bill Act enactedUnited States
- ESMA guidelines on ESG fund names take effectEuropean Union
- SEC approves spot Bitcoin ETFsUnited States
- ELTIF 2.0 opens private markets to retail investorsEuropean Union
- PRIIPs KID becomes mandatory for UCITS fundsEuropean Union
- Series I savings bonds hit record 9.62% rateUnited States
- Pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP) applicableEuropean Union
Rules change; the arithmetic does not. Put your own contributions, rate and horizon into the calculator and see what a change is worth over twenty years.
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The 27.5% KESt, crypto pulled inside the ordinary tax net, MiFID II — and a holding-period exemption promised by two governments and enacted by neither.
The FHSA, rising TFSA room and Home Buyers' Plan limits, the CPP enhancement, the DSC ban — and a capital gains hike announced, then cancelled.
MiFID II and PRIIPs, the payment-for-order-flow ban, ELTIF 2.0 and PEPP, and the Savings and Investments Union now being built on top of them.
The 2018 fund tax reform and the Vorabpauschale, a doubled saver's allowance, the ETF savings-plan boom, and two retirement reforms arriving in 2027.
PIR accounts and BTP Valore, a crypto tax regime rewritten twice in three years, and the auto-enrolment that now moves severance pay into pension funds.
Retroactive pillar 3a buy-ins, AHV 21, the end of negative interest rates, the abolished imputed rental value, and the reforms voters turned down.
The SECURE Acts, commissions falling to zero, spot Bitcoin ETFs, the TCJA and its 2025 sequel, and the fiduciary rules that courts struck down twice.
By topic
How investment income is taxed keeps moving: allowances and rates, the Vorabpauschale, new crypto regimes, and Canada's cancelled capital gains hike.
The vehicles people actually retire on: SECURE 2.0, pillar 3a buy-ins, the CPP enhancement, TFR auto-enrolment and Germany's new retirement depots.
MiFID II, PRIIPs, FIDLEG, the payment-for-order-flow ban and the fiduciary rules that failed in court — how the selling of products was rewritten.
The end of negative interest rates, the inflation squeeze, T+1 settlement and zero-commission trading — shifts that changed long-term arithmetic.
Where standard advice was revised: trading costs at zero, banned sales charges, standardised fund disclosure, and what negative real rates did to cash.
Limit changes large enough to alter a savings plan: Germany's doubled saver's allowance, retroactive pillar 3a buy-ins, TFSA, FHSA and catch-up rules.