10 March 2005

Speech: McCreevy outlines the Financial Services Agenda

In his speech held on 10 May on the EUROFI event in Luxembourg, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy outlined the agenda for the next five years on financial services. With the efforts to integrate its financial markets, Europe became a key driver in trying to create global convergence of regulatory standards. The next five years will be a “phase of consolidation of existing legislation, with few new initiatives, and a phase of ensuring the effective transposition of European rules into national regulation and more rigorous enforcement by supervisory authorities” McCreevy said.

The next 12 months will concentrate on unfinished business, particularly on Reinsurance, Corporate Governance, Statutory Audit, reform of Company Law, Capital Requirements, Solvency II, International Accounting Standards and the Legal Framework for Payments.

On Payments the Commission will adopt a proposal later this year to remove legal obstacles. “It has been 4 years since promises were made by the banking industry to develop, by no later than 2010, Europe-wide payments infrastructure. I now understand from the industry that this target date is likely to be missed” the Commissioner said. “If necessary, the Commission will make some agreed industry standards mandatory and include the roadmap for the Single European Payments Area in our draft legal text.”

“The important debate on European supervisory convergence will be taken forward in the Commission’s new strategy. The Commission believes in tackling these supervisory challenges through an evolutionary, practical bottom-up approach, building on the encouraging experience with the Lamfalussy model. Factual evidence needs to be gathered to see if and where there are difficulties in the various sectors and which are the gaps identified.”

On the integration of European Retail Markets, McCreevy states that “any new initiative should be strongly evidence based, sustained by open consultation processes and with a strong economic underpinning. Forum groups might be introduced to look into any barriers for specific retail products. Fruitful experience has already been gained in the mortgage credit area, where a separate Green Paper is planned for the summer of 2005.”

The Commission also plans to come forward with new initiatives in the area of Asset management. “Investment funds play an increasingly important role in European financial markets. It is already clear we need to update the existing legislative framework that we have now” the Commissioner said. “On the basis of a comprehensive review of legislation for collective investment funds (UCITS) this summer, the Commission services will prepare a separate Green Paper on asset management for publication in July this year.”

Mr McCreevy concluded that the Commission will issue a Green Paper on the new financial integration strategy within the coming two months. This Paper will be open for public consultation over the summer and will form the input for a Communication on our final policy programme, planned for November.

Full speech

© European Commission