Our new service "Brexit
and the City - the Impact" builds on the popularity of my series
of videos about the impact of Brexit on "the City" - shorthand for
the financial services industry throughout the UK.
Details are here
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181st Brussels 4 Breakfast: with Graham Bishop,Salomé Cisnal de Ugarte,
Nickolas Reinhardt, William Wright and Martina Garcia
Why you should watch: Our eminent panel discusses the implications of the financial
front of the Ukraine Russia war, recovery and resilience tools to support the
region through the Ukraine crisis, how antitrust deals reveal new tensions in
the division of competences between Member States and European Commission and
the latest trends in post-Brexit dynamics including the closely watched rhythm
in assets and people transfer from London to EU hubs, and many more.
Moderator: Martina Garcia
(Chief Executive Officer, CSFI)
Graham Bishop is renowned for his vision and the courage to propose radical
ideas yet ground them in a mastery of the technical details of the financial
system... to the extent that he has even been referred to as a one-man think
tank. He was elected as Chairman of the National Council of the UK branch of
the European Movement in 2020, after many years on the National Council,
Executive and Vice-Chairman.
Nickolas Reinhardt co-founded Afore Consulting in 2007. Over a career of 20 years,
he has come to be regarded as one of the most influential financial services
consultants in Brussels. Previously, he ran the global regulatory practice at a
public affairs company. He has extensive experience in all areas of financial
services and competition policy. He trained and worked as a merchant banker in
Hamburg.
Salomé Cisnal de Ugarte is a partner in the Brussels office at King & Spalding and is
part of the firm’s Global Antitrust practice. She provides strategic and legal
advice to companies and investors in complex competition matters, with a
particular emphasis on merger control, antitrust complaints, and global
investigations. She represents clients before the European Commission, national
competition authorities and the European Courts.
William Wright is the founder and managing director of New Financial, a
specialist publication for the capital markets that is now part of the Wall
Street Journal and Dow Jones. William was editor of Financial News between 2003
and 2011, and on his watch Financial News established itself as one of the most
widely read and respected publications for the investment banking and asset
management industries.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________CSFI: 180th Brussels 4 Breakfast with Graham Bishop, Adrian
Whelan (BBH), Simona Amati (Kreab) and Frank van Lerven (NEF)
Why you
should watch: There's a lot going
on. There's the Commission's 'time-limited' equivalence ruling for CCPs
(and its notional 2025 end-date); there's the House of Lords inquiry into
the impact of Brexit on UK financial services; there's the 30th
anniversary of Maastricht - and the possibility that the Conference on
the Future of Europe might actually lead to treaty change... Plus EuReCA,
the continuing controversy over the EU's 'taxonomy', the way ESG is
insinuating itself into all financial decisions, and the Digital Markets
Act. Oh, and CBDCs...
Moderator: Andrew
Hilton (Director, CSFI)
Graham
Bishop is one of the UK's leading
Brussels-watchers. A committed europhile, he has been a fixture in the
City of London since he started out with Phillips and Drew in the 1970s.
Adrian
Whelan is global head of
regulatory intelligence at Brown Brothers, Harriman in Dublin. He is also
the lead contributor to BBH's 'On the Regs' blog.
Simona
Amati is senior adviser and chief
economist at Kreab Worldwide in Brussels. She was formerly with the
Central Bank of Luxembourg and the ECB.
Frank van
Lerven is senior economist and
programme lead for macroeconomics at the New Economics Foundation in
London, where he focuses on green issues, central banks and monetary
policy. He was previously senior economist at Positive Money.
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CSFI: 179th Brussels 4 Breakfast with Tilman Lueder - DG FISMA
Tilman Lueder gives a fascinating insight into the Commission's
work programme, covering its priorities in the securities/markets area.
Why you should watch: For once, Graham gets second billing. The reason you should watch
this video is because Tilman Lueder gives a fascinating insight into the
Commission's work programme, covering its priorities in the securities/markets
area. These include the consolidated tape project, the revision of the
prospectus and listing rules, the renewed focus on retail investors (including
concerns about 'gamification'), integration of ESG into 'everything', and
consultation on an 'Open Investment' initiative. There is also an important
discussion on just what 'strategic autonomy' really means as far as EU
financial markets are concerned - and a powerful justification for it. Plus a
few words on Libor. (Not to be missed. AH)
Moderator: Andrew Hilton
(Director, CSFI)
Graham Bishop is 'the eponymous proprietor of grahambishop.com, one of the UK's
longest-established EU consultancies'. He is a former bond analyst at Citi, who
began his career in the City in the early 1970s with Phillips and Drew.
Tilman Lueder is head of securities markets at the European Commission in
Brussels. He is a lawyer by background, with a JD from the University of
Tuebingen, who began his career at Cleary Gottlieb before joining the
Commission. Prior to his present role, he was head of asset management at the
Commission, head of copyright and spokesman on antitrust issues. He has been at
the Commission for 23 years.
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We discussed a selection of events since the 178th Brussels 4 Breakfast on 15 December 2021. These were taken from articles from my website
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15 December 2021
178th "Brussels 4 Breakfast": Our monthly look at
financial developments in the EU institutions, with Graham Bishop, Julia
Rodkiewicz (ICMA) and Thea Utoft (FTI Consulting)
Why you should watch: Regardless of Brexit, the EU matters – especially to the UK
financial services sector. What happens to CCPs is an obvious concern, but
developments on the CMU programme are equally – and more positively – important
to London. There is also the Green taxonomy, issues over a consolidated tape
(and post-trade transparency more generally), and a serious attempt to come to
grips with digitalisation and with the mysterious world of DeFi. Plus, what
does the new German government mean for financial services? And what does the
French Presidency have up its sleeve for the first half of next year?
Moderator: Andrew Hilton
(Director, CSFI)
Graham Bishop is the eponymous proprietor of grahambishop.com, one of the UK’s
longest-established EU consultancies. He is a former bond analyst with leading
US and UK banks who has been a fixture in the City of London and in Brussels
since the early 1970s.
Julia Rodkiewicz is the director of market practice and regulatory policy at the
International Capital Market Association in Brussels, where she opened a rep
office earlier this year. She was previously a director at ISDA, and before
that worked at BNY Mellon and CEPS.
Thea Utoft is a managing director at FTI Consulting in Brussels. She is a
former Counsellor to the Danish Permanent Representative, and before that was a
special adviser on EU affairs to the Danish financial regulator.
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23rd November 2021
In his latest Federal Trust video - with over 16k views already - Graham Bishop argues that the
current controversy over central counterparties (CCPs) is symbolic of
the difficulties facing the City after Brexit. |
The City will not lose its dominant position in this sector
overnight, but the EU sees building up its own CCPs as strategic
necessity. Over the years, the EU will look to make CCPs from the EU
first competitive with and then eventually more attractive than their
City equivalents.
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177th Brussels 4 Breakfast: 17 November 2021 with John O'Donnell (Reuters)
Why you should watch: Kyriakos Mitsotakis says the EU will review the S&GP – and
that the outcome will be ‘in our favour’. Wonder what Germany’s likely next
Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, makes of that – and how he will sell it to
FDP voters. Still, post-Covid, the debt and deficit limits make little sense.
As for the push for financial services to shift from London to Frankfurt, Paris
etc, it may be a question of timing. Longer term, the trend is (fairly) clear,
but, in the short term, there is certainly little appetite in Germany for
taking on new business – or new risks. One good thing from COP: the IFRS is
trying to sort out green from brown – and its proposal for an ISSB is a genuine
step forward. Other than that, the message from Glasgow was mixed:
eco-enthusiasts could see sunlit uplands. Cynics see only empty phrases. Other
issues: the so-called banking package, Solvency 2 on sustainability, AFME on
data sharing, and the usual confusion over CBDC.
Moderator: Andrew Hilton
(Director, CSFI)
Graham Bishop has been a fixture in the City of London since 1972, and deeply
immersed in euro-issues since the far-off days of the Giovannini Commission. He
set up his own consultancy in 2000, and has since become one of the most
dedicated Brussels-watchers in the UK.
John O’Donnell is the chief European correspondent for Reuters, based in
Frankfurt (though, pre-Covid) he was spending much of his time in Brussels. He
is a former business correspondent for the Sunday Times. His current interests
range from Russian money-laundering, to Taliban financing and the implications
of the Wirecard scandal.
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I have published - with the Federal Trust -
another of my videos on "Brexit: the Impact on the City". This one is
entitled “
Brexit has ended the Golden Age of the City of London.”
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June 23rd: 174th Brussels 4 Breakfast
Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI); Panellists: Graham Bishop; Andreas Dombret and Pablo Portugal. For members: link to summary and topics
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June 4th: Financial Services Club/ZYen video with Alderman Mainelli and
Graham Bishop: Brexit: Ending the City's Dominance of European Finance?