Graham Bishop.com

This week in "Brussels"

22 September 2022

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Highlights of my week: In a week shortened by the Queen’s State Funeral, Putin’s desperate gambles pushed the imminent Italian election into the background but the stability of the massive pile of Italian state debt is a huge concern for EU financial markets. Hopefully, the SRB’s conference on the resolvability of EU banks was only another example of prudent planning. AFME produced a major assessment of the state of play in CMU as well as a cautionary note on the problems of moving a multi-jurisdictional EU system to T+1 settlement. The Taxonomy stirred possible legal challenges while the ECB pushed on with its digital euro prototype and the crypto meltdown claimed more CEO casualties. More lessons from sterling’s Black Wednesday 30 years ago. Has PM Truss given herself a breathing space on the Northern Ireland Protocol until the 25^th anniversary (in 2023) of the Good Friday Agreement?

Graham Bishop

Articles from 16 - 22 September

Policy impacting Finance

Statement by President Charles Michel upon the passing of Queen Elizabeth II : For many, she was an anchor of stability in a rapidly changing world. She was once called “Elizabeth the Steadfast”. She was indeed a wise leader who never failed to show us the importance of lasting values in this modern world – values like service, commitment, and tradition. View Article

CER's Scazzieri: What Giorgia Meloni would mean for Europe : A government led by Giorgia Meloni would lead to some turbulence between Rome and Brussels – particularly on migration and economic policy. But Italy’s EU and foreign policies – including towards Russia – are unlikely to change much. View Article

EURACTIV: Meloni: ‘My party does not have an anti-European wing’ : Far right-Italian politician Giorgia Meloni, favourite to become Italy’s first female prime minister after the September 25 elections, told EURACTiV’s partner EFE that her party is not anti-EU but instead just wants it to be more efficient. She also hoped for a similar right-wing trajectory in the Spanish 2023 elections. View Article

Hugo Dixon: How Italy could tip into a tailspin : Next month it will be 100 years since Benito Mussolini launched his fascist coup in Italy when his supporters marched on Rome. Later this month the country is almost certain to elect Giorgia Meloni, a former post-fascist and eurosceptic, as its new prime minister. So far, investors haven’t blinked. View Article

UK Finance: Advancements in performance management tools to enable competitive advantages : Performance management tools can support talent retention, drive responsible and ethical innovation, and enable the finance industry in the UK to remain competitive internationally. View Article

IMF blog: From 1980s Debt Crisis to Crypto Era, Financial Stability Monitoring is Always Evolving : The IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report, introduced in 2002, was a step toward a more comprehensive assessment of risks in financial markets and cross-border capital flows. View Article

Banking Union

Opening speech by Commissioner McGuinness at European Court of Auditors high-level seminar, 'New EU AML-CTF supervision model: expectations : But fundamentally, when we talk about money laundering, we're talking about trust and integrity – or indeed the attack on trust and integrity in our financial system... And as citizens we should be able to trust the financial system...Dirty money destroys trust and corrupts the system. View Article

SRB holds its seventh annual conference – European banks: resolvable and ready for crisis? : The Single Resolution Board (SRB) brings together industry, EU policymakers, key stakeholders and academia to discuss whether European banks are resolvable and ready for crisis, given these uncertain economic times. View Article

Capital Markets Union

SSM's McCaul: Supervising leveraged lending : Speech by Elizabeth McCaul, Member of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, at AFME’s 17th Annual European Leveraged Finance Conference View Article

AFME: Strengthening the cometitiveness of European financial markets : “ Major legislative proposals are under consideration that may have far-reaching impacts on Europe’s financial system” View Article

AFME: T+1 Settlement in Europe: Potential Benefits and Challenges : The purpose of this paper is to provide some initial reflections on two major questions: should Europe (by which we mean the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, and Switzerland) also move to T+1? And if so, how can this be achieved? View Article

BETTER FINANCE: European insurers between solvency, inflation and rising interest rates : BdV and BETTER FINANCE once again examine the stability of the main EU insurers View Article

Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)

ESMA: Sustainable Finance - implementation timeline : For SFDR/TR/CSRD/MiFID/IDD/UCITS/AIFMD View Article

UNEP FI: Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance Progress Report demonstrates advance on decarbonisation targets : The UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance launches its second-ever Progress Report, showing significant membership growth matched by credible intermediate decarbonisation targets. On the Alliance’s third anniversary, the membership stands at six times what it was during its formation in 2019. View Article

ECB: How are we aiming to decarbonise our corporate bond holdings? : .. we are taking action: we will decarbonise our corporate bond holdings with the aim of putting them on a path aligned with the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement... we will look at how the companies that issue bonds – known as “issuers” – are working to mitigate their climate impact. View Article

IPE's Serenelli:Environmental groups launch legal action against EU taxonomy : A group of organisations campaigning to protect the environment is legally challenging the EU taxonomy labelling gas as a sustainable economic activity, threatening to bring the European Commission to court. View Article

A European Sovereignty Fund for an industry “Made in Europe” Blog of Commissioner Thierry Breton : “I will push to create a new European Sovereignty Fund. Let's make sure that the future of industry is made in Europe.” – EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, SOTEU 2022 View Article

ECGI's Pollman: The Making and Meaning of ESG : ESG is one of the most notable trends in corporate governance, management, and investment of the past two decades. It is at the center of the largest and most contentious debates in contemporary corporate and securities law. Yet few observers know where the term comes from, who coined it, and what it was originally aimed to mean and achieve. View Article

FERMA: Insuring the transition – more support needed from insurers : The Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) today calls on the (re)insurance industry to do more to support its corporate clients in making the transition to carbon neutrality. View Article

SSEI: WFE’s 8th Sustainability Survey Reveals Focus on Carbon Neutrality Transition : The global industry group for exchanges and central clearing counterparties, has revealed a significant advance in the depth and scope of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) – with an increased focus on the transition to carbon neutrality. View Article

EBF et al: Joint letter calling for safeguarding the proper functioning of the EU ETS : The European Banking Federation (EBF) co-signed a joint industry letter to the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, and the European Parliament, calling for the proper functioning of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) to be safeguarded. View Article

Fin Tech Regulation

Finextra: ECB taps CaixaBank and Amazon for digital euro prototypes : The ECB received 54 expressions of interest after it put out a call for partners in April and has now settled on the Spanish lender and US tech giant, alongside Worldline, Nexi and EPI. View Article

BEUC: Distance Marketing of Financial Services : With BigTech companies and newcomers (FinTechs) entering financial markets, the sale and marketing of financial service products, such as consumer credit, insurance and current accounts, is increasingly moving online and new products constantly appear on the market, promoted through different channels such as social media. View Article

State of the Union: New EU cybersecurity rules ensure more secure hardware and software products : The Commission has presented a proposal for a new Cyber Resilience Act to protect consumers and businesses from products with inadequate security features. A first ever EU-wide legislation of its kind, it introduces mandatory cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements, throughout their whole lifecycle. View Article

Bloomberg: Crypto Shakeout Engulfs the C-Suite as CEOs Start Stepping Down : Kraken CEO joins peers at Genesis, Alameda in stepping down, Crypto faces regulatory scrutiny after a series of meltdowns View Article

Brexit and the City

City AM: London breezes past European rivals to retain finance hub crown : London has breezed past its Continental rivals to retain the title of Europe’s top financial hub... The capital’s deep highly-skilled talent pool helped drive it to the top of the European rankings in the 32nd edition of Z/Yen’s global financial centres index (GFCI). View Article

NIESR's Marsh: Six Lessons from Black Wednesday for Today’s Central Bankers : Britain’s forced departure from the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System 30 years ago was a landmark in UK and European economic history. The saga of monetary misfortune that culminated on 16 September 1992 contains significant lessons for contemporary policy-makers. View Article

Brexit

FT: Liz Truss looks to settle NI protocol dispute by anniversary of Good Friday deal : After Biden talks in New York, UK and US both voice need to defend progress over 25 years of peace accord View Article

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