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Articles from 27 February 2020 - 05 March 2020

General Policy

ECB: Major European financial infrastructures join forces against cyber threats : A group of Europe’s largest and most important financial infrastructures, members of the Euro Cyber Resilience Board for pan-European Financial Infrastructures, launched an initiative to share vital cybersecurity threat information to help protect European citizens’ savings against cybercriminals.  View Article

ECMI: A complex European financial architecture - 10 years on : In this Research Report, ECMI General Manager Karel Lanoo states that, apart from the Single Supervisory Mechanism, member states prefer cooperation rather than integration mode for their financial markets. View Article

Banking Union

EBA notes enhanced consistency on institutions’ Pillar 3 disclosures but calls for improvements to reinforce market discipline : The EBA published its Report assessing institutions’ Pillar 3 disclosures, which aims at identifying best practices and potential areas for improvement. While the EBA observes overall progress in institutions’ prudential disclosures, some practices may still impair the proper communication of their risk profile in a comparable way, compromising the ultimate objective of market discipline. View Article

BCBS meets to review vulnerabilities and emerging risks, advance supervisory initiatives and promote Basel III implementation : The Committee has consulted with members and stakeholders on its future priorities, its structure and its processes. Members discussed the feedback received and exchanged initial views on the way forward. The Committee aims to finalise its review in the course of the year.  View Article

BIS: Benchmark rate reforms : The BCBS fully supports the global efforts to strengthen the robustness and reliability of existing inter-bank offered rates (IBORs) and promote the development of alternative reference rates.  View Article

ECB's af Jochnick: Challenges for the European banking system : Speech by Kerstin af Jochnick, Member of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, in which she shares her views on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for European banks.  View Article

Financial Times: Beware ‘badwill’ in European bank M&A : Regulators and investors should be sceptical of paper profits generated by high bids, writes Simon Samuels. View Article

VoxEU: The effect of bank capital requirements on the real economy and their interaction with monetary policy : Following the financial crisis, central banks and regulatory authorities assumed new powers to set macroprudential bank capital requirements. This column describes a number of macro models used by the ECB to measure the real impact of capital requirements and their interactions with monetary policy.  View Article

ECB seeks feedback on amendments to the regulation on payments statistics : The ECB is launching a public consultation on a draft Regulation amending the Regulation on payments statistics. The Regulation has been reviewed with the aim of keeping the ECB’s statistics fit for purpose. The review also takes into account an assessment of the relative merits of new requirements against the potential costs to reporting agents. View Article

BIS: Shaping the future of payments: BIS quarterly review : The BIS quarterly review takes an in-depth look at the fast-changing world of payments, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of existing systems, describing the rapid pace of technological change and its impact, and assessing new solutions. View Article

Capital Markets Union

ECB pushes for EU capital markets integration and development : According to the new European Central Bank report on “Financial Integration and Structures in the Euro Area”, the financial structure of the euro area continues to be dominated by non-marketable instruments, despite an increase in financial integration in 2019. View Article

Luis de Guindos - Euronews

ECB's De Guindos - Capital markets union: the role of equity markets and sustainable finance : Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, delivered an update on the progress achieved so far on the CMU project, and then turned to the way forward, focusing on two key dimensions in developing deeper capital markets: risk capital markets and sustainable finance. View Article

Pablo Hernández de Cos: Thoughts on global financial stability and the European Capital Markets Union : Speech by Mr Pablo Hernández de Cos, Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chair of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, where he gave an overview of the main risks to global financial stability and discussed recent developments and the way forward regarding the European Capital Markets Union. View Article

ISDA, EFAMA, EVIA, FIA and GFXD publish EMIR reporting best practices : The EMIR Reporting Best Practices cover 87 data points across 61 reporting fields, including both over-the-counter and exchange-traded derivatives, and were developed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of trade reporting and to reduce compliance costs. View Article

MiFID II: ESMA makes available the results of the annual transparency calculations for equity and equity-like instruments : ESMA’s annual transparency calculations are based on the data provided to Financial Instruments Transparency System (FITRS) by trading venues and arranged publication arrangements (APAs) in relation to the calendar year 2019. View Article

AFME publishes recommendations for partial settlement under CSDR : The recommendations aim to encourage greater and more harmonised use of partial settlement across the industry as a way of improving settlement rates. View Article

Time to act - ICMA issues study on the state of the European investment grade corporate bond secondary market : ICMA issued the third in its series of studies into the state and evolution of the European investment grade corporate bond secondary market. View Article

Financial Times: City watchdog tells asset managers to stop using Libor-linked products : Asset management groups have been given the sternest warning yet that they must stop using investments and fee-structures linked to Libor — and cannot wait for clients to demand a move away from the tainted interest rate. View Article

EFAMA: Equity UCITS sales bounced back in Q4 but bond funds remain 2019 bestsellers : EFAMA has published its latest Quarterly Statistical Release describing the trends in the European investment fund industry in the fourth quarter of 2019 as well as a summary for the full year.  View Article

Insurance Europe: EIOPA’s draft PEPP proposals are overly ambitious and lack crucial technical details : Insurance Europe has warned that the approach taken by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) to draft proposals for technical standards that set out the details of the pan-European personal pension product (PEPP) is extremely ambitious, with EIOPA exceeding its mandate, which is set by the PEPP regulation, on several occasions. View Article

Insurance Europe: New pensions survey: Nearly half of Europeans not saving for retirement : 43% of European citizens are not saving anything privately for their retirements, according to a broad survey by Insurance Europe of 10 000 people across 10 European countries. Of those not saving, 62% say they are interested in saving for retirement.  View Article

Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)

 

Ursula von der Leyen - POLITICO

 

European Commission proposes European Climate Law and consults on the European Climate Pact : The European Commission presents a proposal to enshrine in legislation the EU's political commitment to be climate neutral by 2050. The European Climate Law sets the 2050 target and the direction of travel for all EU policy, and gives predictability for public authorities, businesses and citizens. View Article

BIS's Lagarde: Climate change and the financial sector : ECB president Christine Lagarde said that central banks need to devote greater attention to understanding the impact of climate change, including its implications for inflation dynamics.  View Article

Global Reporting Initiative: Comprehensive ESG backed by world’s largest sovereign wealth fund : A report from Norges Bank Investment Management has called for businesses to improve metrics to ensure they disclose ‘relevant, quantitative and comparable information on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues’. View Article

ECGI: ESG rating disagreement and stock returns : ESG ratings are often based on non-standardized information and data vendors use different rating methodologies, ratings can diverge substantially. So far, it is not well understood why ESG ratings diverge and whether, or not, there are financial implications from such divergence. View Article

Accountancy Europe: From risks to regulation: rethinking company categorisation : Accountancy Europe proposes a risk-based approach to categorise companies which better reflects their impacts on the economy, environment and society. View Article

CDSB: The review of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive – why it´s significant and what to watch for? : As announced in the EU Green Deal, the EC expects companies and financial institutions to improve their disclosure of non-financial information so that investors are better informed about the sustainability of their investment decisions. As part of the EC’s plan to strengthen the foundations for sustainable investment, the EC has announced a review of the Directive. View Article

Financial Times: Regulator outlines plans to break up Big Four firms : The FRC is pressing firms to split voluntarily as part of efforts to improve auditing quality. The FRC issued guidelines for the big four (Deloitte, EY, KPMG or PricewaterhouseCoopers) to separate their audit and consulting operations in Britain. View Article

IIRC: International Framework recommended as a key framework in call to action to tackle climate change : The IIRC’s Framework has been recommended as a key framework for accountants globally to use as they respond to and account for climate change risks. The recommendation has come as part of a call to action signed by 14 accounting bodies and led by the Princes’ Accounting For Sustainability (A4S). View Article

IAIS calls for action on strengthening climate related financial disclosures : The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) and Sustainable Insurance Forum (SIF) published an issues paper on the implementation of the recommendations of the task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD). View Article

EBF response to the Inception Impact Assessment on the Non-Financial Reporting Directive : The NFRD should take the form of a Regulation, to ensure harmonization and efficiency. An EU minimum reporting standard on the key data points and KPIs that are necessary to apply the taxonomy and the sustainability disclosures regulation, and more specifically to demonstrate the investment’s environmental impact should be developed. View Article

Protecting Customers

IFAC releases the third installment of "Exploring the IESBA Code" : IFAC released the latest installment of its Exploring the IESBA Code educational series: The Conceptual Framework–Step 2, Evaluating Threats. View Article

Fin Tech Regulation

ESMA Chair Steven Maijoor delivers keynote at 4th Annual Fintech Conference : ESMA's Maijoor focused on the growing scale of financial technology and the firms involved, and what this means for regulation. Maijoor outlined the trends around BigTech in finance and then turned to DLT, and to the possibility of global stablecoins as an area where BigTech and DLT may intersect. View Article

Financial Times: Cyber security: are fund managers keeping up with regulators? : Watchdogs are stepping in as financial institutions remain vulnerable, writes Ben Watford. It is no secret that there is money in asset management and corresponding incentives for those willing to test an institution’s cyber defences. View Article

Economic Policies Impacting EU Finance

Main results - Competitiveness Council : EU Green Deal: ministers held a debate on the transition to a climate neutral and circular EU. They also discussed the Single Market Performance Report 2019 and adopted conclusions on better regulation.  View Article

Basic Enconomic Indicators

Euro area unemployment at 7.4% : The euro area (EA19) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 7.4% in January 2020, stable compared with December 2019 and down from 7.8% in January 2019.  View Article

Volume of retail trade up by 0.6% in euro area : In January 2020 compared with December 2019, the seasonally adjusted volume of retail trade increased by 0.6% in the euro area (EA19) and by 0.5% in the EU27, according to estimates from Eurostat. View Article

Euro area and EU Economic Sentiment up – Employment Expectations mildly down : In February 2020, the Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) increased in both the euro area (by 0.9 points to 103.5) and the EU (by 0.5 points to 103.0). View Article

EU27 Politics

The Guardian: Support for Eurosceptic parties doubles in two decades across EU : The paradox at the heart of Europe has been revealed in new research that shows that the vote share for Eurosceptic parties has more than doubled in two decades, even though support for the EU remains at record highs. View Article

UK in a Changing Europe: Germany: its struggling centre-right and what it means for Europe and Brexit : After an eventful February, Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) are – yet again – looking for a new party leader. As Chancellor Angela Merkel’s era is nearing its end, the answer will also have repercussions for Germany and its relations with Europe, and potentially for Brexit. View Article

 

Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	FT Brussels @ftbrussels
UK seeks EU assurance on deadline for financial market access on.ft.com/2Ia7EEn
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	YouGov @YouGov
With the UK beginning trade negotiations with both the EU and the US this month, here is who Brits would prefer to have as the closer trading partner between the two: ????: 51% ????: 17% yougov.co.uk/topics/travel/… pic.twitter.com/V0Z2WTsp20
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	European Central Bank @ecb
ECB Supervisory Board member Kerstin af Jochnick says banks that have been quicker to adjust to the Basel standards are in a better position to support their customers. That’s why banks need to implement Basel III faithfully, consistently and in good time bankingsupervision.europa.eu/press/speeches… pic.twitter.com/ohUo1yOgD6
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	European Central Bank @ecb
ECB Vice-President Luis de Guindos says completing the capital markets union requires improvements in two key areas: the dynamism of private equity investments, particularly in risk capital markets, as well as sustainable finance. Read more: ecb.europa.eu/press/inter/da…
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	Bloomberg @business
Global economic growth will sink to levels not seen in over a decade as the coronavirus outbreak hammers demand and supply, according to the OECD trib.al/tf8aDcc pic.twitter.com/muCG2Bmo9F
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	FT Brussels @ftbrussels
Top City bosses reject post-Brexit ‘Singapore on Thames’ on.ft.com/3cdEYbm
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	Bloomberg Brexit @Brexit
Boris Johnson's office says only full independence from EU rules will do—and the U.K. is willing to walk away from talks if necessary trib.al/t4q7BF2
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	UNCTAD @UNCTAD
#Brexit: New UNCTAD estimates show that the UK ???? risks losing up to 14% ($32 billion) of its exports to the EU ????. bit.ly/BrexitNTMs pic.twitter.com/krDpuwXPli
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	Bloomberg Brexit @Brexit
“The trade deal will be associated with a fisheries agreement and a level playing field, otherwise there won’t be any agreement at all" trib.al/nkR4lTC
Graham Bishop #FBPE retweeted
	Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen
? Mandate approved. Ready to go. Negotiations with the #UK will begin the week of 2nd March. We stand ready to build a close, ambitious partnership with the UK. This is good for people, good for business. #NewBeginnings ????????