Common industry terms have low investor recognition

As with most industries, the world of finance is littered with acronyms and jargon. The use of acronyms and jargon can be useful when investment professionals interact with each other. But, using it more widely can cause confusion and result in less confidence from investors.

A common industry term is ESG, which stands for environmental, social and governance. However, our research found that globally only 30% of investors recognise this term.

We found that recognition was lower in Europe at 22% compared to Asia where 36% of investors are familiar with the term ESG.

Only 5 out of the 11 countries had ESG in their top-three recognised terms. All of these were in Asia - Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia.