20 December 2005

December 2005

Graham Bishop’s Personal Overview. 


Despite the imminence of the holiday season, the European Institutions have continued to produce a full quantum of reports – with the publication of the long-awaited White Paper on financial services policy 2005-2010 as the key. 

The European Commission states that it has no intention of producing another legislative package of the same magnitude as the 1999 “Financial Services Action Plan” and its 42 measures. However, the proposals for the retail sector – mortgage credit, consumer credit and payments are likely to turn into massively significant pieces of legislation affecting the entire financial system of the EU and thus electors, rather than just the players in the capital markets. 

The exercise to reform insurance regulation – Solvency II – will also be a huge piece of legislation that is likely to have many subsidiary items of secondary law, and the preference now seems to be moving to make these Regulations – with direct effect, rather than risk delays and defective transposition by using Directives. Whatever the result of the regulatory impact assessment in the spring, changes in the clearing and settlement framework within the EU seem inevitable as renewed jockeying for position within the stock exchanges now seem likely to be a feature of 2006. 

2005 may turn out to be the lull before the storm, rather than the beginning of a “regulatory pause”. In 2006, we will do our best to keep our clients and friends abreast of the “Brussels” developments in financial services. 

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Graham Bishop

© Graham Bishop