The €10 Trillion Problem: Why Europe Needs to Turn Savers Into Investors

We build the infrastructure banks and fintechs use to launch investing products , so when the numbers behind Europe's retail investment shift land on our desk, we read them a little differently than most.

Here's the one that matters most right now: roughly €10 trillion of EU household savings is sitting in bank deposits, earning next to nothing, while capital markets stay largely out of reach for the average saver. The EU's Savings and Investments Union, launched in March 2025, is a direct response to that gap, its whole premise is turning idle capital into active investment.

For us, that's not just a policy headline. It's a demand signal. Every euro that moves out of a deposit account has to land somewhere, a brokerage app, a robo-advisor, a savings plan, and someone has to build the infrastructure underneath it, fast enough to catch that shift instead of watching a competitor catch it first. That's the opportunity we built Slate for.

The policy is already moving, but not without friction

The SIU isn't arriving alone. The Retail Investment Strategy (RIS), proposed by the European Commission in 2023, aims to put the retail investor at the center, ensuring investment decisions are fair and well protected. But the path hasn't been smooth: in June 2026, EFAMA called the final compromise text "a major missed opportunity," arguing it adds regulatory complexity without addressing the real barriers holding back retail participation.

On top of that, several member states are pushing forward Savings and Investment Accounts (SIAs), designed to let people start investing with contributions as low as €10 a month, with tax advantages that make the product more attractive to the average saver.

The signal for any financial institution is clear: the direction of European policy isn't in question. What's in question is who moves fast enough to capture the opportunity before someone else does.

The pressure isn't only coming from Brussels

While regulation pushes from above, competition pushes from the market. The global neobank market was valued at $143.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $3.4 trillion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. Traditional banks across Europe have responded by launching or acquiring their own digital banks and brokers, a move that's no longer defensive by choice, but by necessity. The digitally native generation expects a modern investing experience, and it isn't going to wait for its bank of record to catch up.

We're seeing this shift firsthand in how institutions buy. Fewer are purchasing execution, custody and front-end technology as separate line items from separate vendors. More are looking for a single, integrated layer that covers the full value chain, from market access to the end client, through back-office, tax, and robo-advisory, because stitching together point solutions is now slower than the market allows.

The real obstacle isn't will, it's infrastructure

This is where most institutions get stuck. The will to capture this opportunity is there, the business case demands it, but the legacy infrastructure most banks, fintechs and asset managers run on wasn't built to launch a modern investment proposition in months. It was built not to break, not to move fast.

This is exactly the problem Slate was built to solve: modular investment infrastructure, agnostic to broker and custodian, that lets banks, fintechs and asset managers launch and scale their investing proposition without rebuilding their technology stack from scratch. A Tier-1 bank recently proved it: UniCredit Poland launched a new investing app in 5 months, with 500+ tasks delivered and zero delays, replacing legacy constraints with a modular platform capable of growing with them toward advisory and discretionary management.

The question every institution should be asking now

Europe has put one of the biggest growth opportunities of the next decade on the table for the financial sector, with policy, demographics, and technology aligned in the same direction for the first time in a long while. The question is no longer whether European savings will move toward investment, that direction is settled. It's which institutions will have the infrastructure ready when it does.

Want to see how your institution could launch a modern investing proposition in months, not years? Book a demo or reach out at business@slatewt.com.