EBA Chairman: EU banks to get single rulebook
15 February 2011
The FT reports that Andrea Enria, chairman of the European Banking Authority, said the financial crisis had highlighted the weakness of consensual efforts to co-ordinate banking regulation in Europe.
The EBA, he said, would need to use its new powers – enshrined in a “single rule book” – to take a stronger line.
“I think now it has to be a little bit more top-down,” Mr Enria told the Financial Times in his first interview since being confirmed as EBA chairman. “The senior people here should engage in real policy discussions, take decisions and make things happen. The ‘single rule book’ is the true power. If we start having regulatory competition again, it will be havoc.”
Mr Enria’s priority will be to restore the market’s faith in stress-testing Europe’s banks, destroyed last year when the Irish banking system collapsed four months after being given a clean bill of health by CEBS.
Bankers and legal analysts said that if Mr Enria succeeded in making the EBA a powerful hub, it would significantly change banking regulation.
© Financial Times
