Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s financial services updater.
There is a lot of information in this week’s updater and the highlights include the following.
Starting with the banking sector the European Commission has published the remarks given by its Vice-President, Olli Rehn, at the recent Eurogroup meeting. In these remarks he states that in early September 2012 the Commission will come forward with legislative proposals for the creation of a single supervisory mechanism for banks in the euro area.
Also, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has published its first Annual Report on risks and vulnerabilities of the European banking sector. The report is interesting in that it describes the main developments and trends that affected the EU banking sector in 2011 and provides the EBA’s outlook on the main micro-prudential risks and vulnerabilities looking ahead.
In the UK the Treasury has published a consultation document entitled The future of building societies. In this consultation document the Government sets out its thoughts on the building societies sector, including the key role it sees for the sector as part of the future for UK financial services. The Government also sets out its proposed approach to developing the legislative framework for building societies, so that they are capable of playing the role it sees for them. The deadline for responding to the consultation document is 6 September 2012.
Moving now to the markets infrastructure sector the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Organization of Securities Commissions have co-published a consultative document which sets out a draft framework for margin requirements on non-centrally cleared derivatives as articulated through key principles. The deadline for comments on the consultative document is 28 September 2012.
In relation to buy side regulation, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published two separate Q&As. The first deals with the notification of UCITS and the exchange of information between competent authorities. The second covers risk measurement and the calculation of global exposure and counterparty risk for UCITS.
Also, ESMA has published two guidelines concerning MiFID, one in relation to suitability requirements and the other relating to compliance function requirements.
Keeping on MiFID, in relation to the European Commission’s legislative proposals for MiFID II the House of Lords’ Economic and Financial Affairs EU Sub-Committee has published a report raising a number of concerns.
In particular the report states that the proposals in relation to third country access are ill-conceived. And that there is a risk that, if introduced, the provisions could lock third country firms out of the EU markets.
I hope you find this week’s updater helpful. Good bye.
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