02 February 2012

European Commission: Third country equivalence under Solvency II

In the letter, Jonathan Faull, Director General Internal Market and Services, wrote:

"It is on that basis that I asked in my previous letter for EIOPA to carry out an analysis of the following:

1) whether persons working for, or on behalf of, the supervisory authorities are bound by obligations of professional secrecy which are equivalent to those established under Solvency II; and

2) the areas where the third country's supervisory regime does not currently meet the equivalence criteria ("gap analysis").

The purpose of this technical analysis is to help the Commission and third country supervisory authorities to prepare for the future discussions that are envisaged in relation to both full and transitional equivalence determinations under Articles 172, 227 and 260 of Directive 2009/138/EC ("the Solvency II Framework Directive"). As such, we would expect EIOPA to adopt a different approach to its work than that adopted for the full equivalence assessments.

The outcome of these discussions is that the following third countries have expressed an interest in being part of a transitional regime:

• Australia
• Chile
• Hong Kong
• Israel
• Mexico
• Singapore
• South Africa."

Full letter

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