17 December 2014

ブルームバーグ：欧州委員会ジョナサン・ヒル委員（金融安定・金融サービス・資本市場同盟担当）、銀行構造改革案を進めることを表明

A proposal presented in January by Hill’s predecessor, Michel Barnier, would introduce a “narrowly defined” proprietary trading ban at about 30 of the biggest EU banks, and set thresholds for determining whether some trading activities must be moved into separately capitalized units. The European Banking Federation yesterday expressed its “disappointment” that Barnier’s bill won’t be scrapped. 

“The sensible thing to do is to seek to make progress quickly” on the legislation, Hill said in a Dec. 15 interview in Brussels. “There are still areas of risk in some of the biggest and most complicated banks that it’s sensible to try to find a way of addressing.” 

Hill said he would seek a compromise on the rules, which need backing from the bloc’s 28 national governments and EU lawmakers to take effect. 

“I’m sure it will be the case, as it always is, that finding the landing zone is not going to be straightforward,” Hill said. For banks’ riskier activities, the goal is “to find a mechanism for identifying them and then taking a nuanced judgment, or a more nuanced judgment, as to what you do about them.” 

The proposal by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has come under attack on multiple fronts since it was presented.

The EBF, which represents lenders across the 28-nation bloc, said the commission’s goals in presenting the bank-structure bill “already have been addressed by new regulations imposed on the sector in recent years.” 

Banks have said the measure would increase their costs, inhibit lending to businesses and damage the functioning of financial markets. 

The text also received a lukewarm reception from national governments and the European Parliament. The European Central Bank, while supporting the initiative, last month urged the EU to tread cautiously around any moves that might affect so-called market-making activities provided by banks.

Full article on Bloomberg

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