meta_id 3475907

On September 8, 2026, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) published a pedagogical guide designed to help financial professionals improve the readability and clarity of key information documents (documents d'informations clés or DIC) for retail investors. The guide encourages the adoption of best practices in presenting information about packaged investment products. European regulations require financial professionals to provide investors with comprehensible information about investment product characteristics. Packaged investment product initiators must produce a DIC for each product that is presented and formatted for easy reading, using legible font sizes and concise, accessible language that avoids financial jargon and terminology. The AMF's qualitative research panel of retail investors revealed persistent difficulties with DIC readability, primarily due to information density and technical vocabulary. A 2025 study examining DIC readability involving 50 equity fund investors found that the DIC was perceived as unattractive in form, complex in substance, and unsuitable for novice savers. The "What is this product?" section, which describes the product's objective and management strategy, attracted particular criticism. Based on these findings, the AMF's guide provides three concrete recommendations: improve DIC presentation; restructure the "What is this product?" section; and adopt clear language principles. The guide includes simplified writing examples based on plain language principles. Implementation of these recommendations remains at the discretion of product initiators, provided they comply with applicable European frameworks. The AMF committed in its 2023-2027 strategic roadmap "Impact 2027" to training its supervision teams to encourage simpler, more comprehensible language in financial documentation. This training commenced in 2024 and continues regularly, enabling AMF teams to monitor DIC readability more closely and encourage asset management companies to apply the guide's recommendations.