In the 2026-2028 plan unveiled today by the president of the regulator Gabriel Bernardino, the ASF pledges to “monitor how companies manage climate risks, promote sustainable investment, and disclose information, while combating practices like ‘greenwashing’ to ensure market integrity” in the insurance and pension fund sectors.
‘Greenwashing’ refers to when an entity presents itself as environmentally conscious and sustainable in advertising or other communications, but its actions and practices do not align with these claims, being environmentally harmful.
This promise of oversight is part of the goal to “integrate sustainability into supervision to enhance resilience and consumer protection,” one of the strategic objectives outlined by the ASF for the coming years, considering the economic, social, and technological outlook in the insurance and pension fund sectors.
Asked at the end of the conference if this is an identified issue in Portugal’s sector, Gabriel Bernardino clarified that both in Portugal and Europe “there are very few sustainable products,” although a few years ago, “when this whole area of sustainability and ESG was launched,” there was an expectation of more significant development than currently observed.
Regarding market products, the regulator will “obviously see if what is being promised is what the product actually contains,” he stated.
At the press conference for the plan presentation, the ASF president remarked that “good governance and risk management are essential” for sector development.
“What vision do we have here at ASF? We want to be a reference regulator. Having that ambition is very important,” he claimed, setting as a goal for ASF to be “among the best” regulators, as “a pillar of trust in the financial system.”
Being a reference involves being independent from political power and the market, he said.
With approximately two and a half months of work completed since the new president took office, the plan “does not emerge from a void,” reflecting “much of the national and international reality,” especially considering the growth of geopolitical risks, Gabriel Bernardino noted.
The document also promises to “simplify the regulatory framework to boost competitiveness and innovation,” aiming to “eliminate unnecessary complexity and disproportionate burdens, especially where we exceed European regulation, while maintaining financial stability and consumer protection as non-negotiable foundations.”
In another pillar aimed at improving “social resilience and citizen protection,” the ASF seeks to “boost retirement savings to strengthen pensions and finance the economy,” promising to promote “a modern regulatory framework that encourages the market to create simpler and fairer retirement solutions, through individual or professional plans, in line with the objectives of the Union of Savings and Investment.”
Bernardino highlighted the “very significant demographic changes, leading to population aging and the need for increasing immigration” for economic growth.
The ASF vows to strategically utilize data to “build a centralized, secure, and scalable data architecture,” to “develop advanced analytics capabilities for early risk identification,” and to “integrate data intelligence into the supervision cycle.”
