Graham Bishop.com

ECB/Cœuré: Interview with Le Monde
Interview with Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, addressing the current level of the euro, Banking Union, rules on ABS et al. View Article

BBA: Banks much better placed now to weather any future crisis
Martin Wolf and Robert Jenkins respectively argue that "bank leverage remains too high" and that banks have "too little" capital. In so doing, they downplay the extent of the huge regulatory changes that are taking place. View Article

BCBS: FAQs on Basel III's January 2013 Liquidity Coverage Ratio
The Basel Committee issued frequently asked questions on Basel III's liquidity coverage ratio (LCR). View Article

BIS: William Coen appointed next Secretary General of Basel Committee
The BCBS announced that it has appointed William Coen as its next Secretary General, for an initial term of three years. He will also serve as the Chairman of the Committee's Policy Development Group. View Article

Reactions to EP's votes on MiFID, PRIIPS, UCITS V
EFAMA welcomes UCITS V and PRIIPs as steps to better protection of retail investors; FESE welcomes European Parliament’s vote on MiFID II and urges ESMA to live up to the Level 1 ambition. Futures and Options World points out key areas to watch when ESMA reports. View Article

Bowles: MiFID – Dog days, dogs of war and dogs that didn't bite
Ex ECON chair Sharon Bowles spoke to the BBA about MiFID negotiations and key outcomes like investor protection, transparency rules, access provisions et al. View Article

FT: ESMA chief warns securities regulators on monitoring risk
Steven Maijoor, chairman of ESMA, said legislation passed last week by the European parliament amounted to the "biggest overhaul of the capital markets in a generation" – but warned that the authorities had a long way to go before putting the regime into practice. View Article

FT/de Larosière: Securitised debt could give Europe’s economy the kiss of life
Jacques de Larosière argues for an opinion piece in the FT that investors can earn better returns from industrial companies than from banks. View Article

EMIR FX: ESMA pours murk into the fog
The FX derivatives’ status under EMIR was not made clearer by comments from ESMA Chairman Steven Maijoor last week, saying that he expected that FX derivatives will have to be reported but not cleared. View Article

FN: Time for a change in derivatives trading
The clock has finally started ticking down to one of the most substantial changes ever seen in the European market for OTC derivatives, a significant part of the global market worth €692 trillion at the end of June 2013, according to the BIS. View Article

FSB: Public responses to feasibility study on approaches to aggregate OTC derivatives trade repository data
On 4 February 2014, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) published its consultative feasibility study on approaches to aggregate OTC derivatives trade repository data. Interested parties were invited to provide written comments by 28 February 2014. View Article

ALFI published 2nd edition of the EMIR/OTC Derivatives FAQ document
ALFI's EMIR/OTC Derivatives FAQ working group, comprising Luxembourg representatives of asset managers, management companies, securities service firms, audit firms, law firms, and document and information management firms, published the 2nd edition of EMIR/OTC Derivatives FAQ document. View Article

ESMA publishes updated data on performance of the Credit Rating Agencies
ESMA published its latest set of semi-annual statistical data on the performance of credit ratings, including transition matrices and default rates. View Article

SEC proposes rules for security-based swap dealers
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to propose new rules for security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap market participants. View Article

Risk.net: EU applies 8 per cent haircut to margin-currency mismatches
An 8 per cent haircut would apply to variation margin under Europe's draft version of margin rules for non-cleared swaps, when the currency of the collateral does not match a trade's settlement currency. The requirement appears in a draft regulatory technical standard by the EBA, ESMA and EIOPA. View Article

Risk.net: Insurers at the mercy of politicians
Insurers received a sharp reminder recently of their vulnerability to political risk. Pension reforms led to an immediate and, in some cases, precipitous drop in UK insurance company share prices when George Osborne announced an end to compulsory annuitisation of defined contribution pension funds. View Article

Commercial Risk Europe: Malta open for reinsurance special purpose vehicles business
Becoming the first European Member State to establish reinsurance special purpose vehicle (SPV) regulation and attract related investment is a key target for Malta. View Article

EIOPA/Bernardino: Towards an EU single market for personal pensions
Gabriel Bernardino, EIOPA’s Chairman, said that taxation, social law, as well as difficulties in the area of harmonisation of contract law, appear to be the most significant hurdles to develop a truly single market for personal pensions. View Article

EuropeanIssuers published its 2013 Annual Report
EuropeanIssuers published its 2013 Annual Report, in which it evaluates the last 12 months from a European financial regulation perspective, stating that the next Commission will need to look to the creation of jobs and growth, and the impact of financial regulation on the end users of markets. View Article

AFME: Consultation response to Discussion Paper on the impact on volatility of own funds
AFME welcomed the opportunity to comment on the Discussion Paper on the impact on volatility of own funds of the revised IAS 19 and the deduction of defined benefit pension assets from own funds under Article 519 of the CRR. View Article

AIMA publishes new AIFMD implementation guides
Global hedge fund industry association AIMA has published a new set of practical guides for hedge fund managers wishing to comply with the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). View Article

IPE: ABP backs calls for asset manager penalty clause
Dutch public sector pension fund ABP said it backs plans by PFZW, the care and welfare sector pension fund, to see "punishments" built into contracts with asset managers, to trigger a fall in fee levels if the managers underperform. View Article

FEE: Unofficial advance text of 2014 audit directive
FEE unofficially compiles an advance version of the full amended text of the Directive 2006/43/EC on statutory audits of annual accounts and consolidated accounts and a table comparing the original 2006 Statutory Audit Directive and the new 2014 Audit Directive. View Article

IASB/Cooper: Dynamic risk management - Accounting in an age of complexity
Steve Cooper, a member of the IASB, discusses an accounting approach for dynamic risk management, saying that dynamic management of interest rate risk is a critical component of a bank’s ongoing risk management activities. View Article

IASB: Discussion paper on accounting for macro hedging
The IASB published for public comment a Discussion Paper exploring an approach to better reflect entities’ dynamic risk management activities in their financial statements, otherwise known as macro hedging. The Discussion Paper is available for comment until 17 October 2014. View Article

IFAC: IAASB's re-exposure on standard addressing information in annual reports
The IAASB released for re-exposure an enhanced International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 720 (Revised), the auditor's responsibilities relating to other information. Comments are requested by 18 July 2014. View Article

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This week in "Brussels"

24 April 2014

© Graham Bishop