20 September 2012

Financial watchdogs under Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee spotlight

Securities and markets authority chair Steven Maijoor, banking authority chair Andrea Enria and insurance and pensions authority chair Gabriel Bernardino were giving testimony as part of the process of holding the EU's financial watchdogs to account.

Tools to meet expectations

A constant theme at the hearing was that the authorities' work was hindered by legal limitations. Mr Enria told lawmakers that stress tests had suffered because his authority could not ensure that data being given by banks was reliable. Messrs Maijoor and Bernardino argued that they needed more powers to ban dangerous financial products. All the chairs also warned that their work would be hampered if their funding were cut and thanked the committee for having recommended increasing the budget for the authorities.

For their part, MEPs quizzed the chairs on the quality of bank stress tests, and the composition of stakeholder groups and reporting obligations. They also called on the authorities to do more to protect ordinary consumers, rather than focusing only on the macro level.

Making the banking union leap

MEPs put many questions about the transition to a banking union, how the EU banking authority would fit into the picture, and the quality of the proposed bank supervision legislation. They also wanted to know whether the new ECB supervisor would be able to break the link between the public purse and banks.

Mr Enria said that a banking union should be welcomed in that it was "a key component of stability", but warned that the "single rule book" could be at risk, as rules for banks within the banking union could end up differing from those for EU banks outside it. "The Commission proposal still leaves too much room for national approaches", he said .

Helping people

The role of the watchdogs in impelling financial players to do more to help the real economy  was also regularly raised.  Mortgage holder protection, pensions and consumer protection were among the issues raised by MEPs. 

Mr Maijoor replied that the securities and markets authority, ESMA, had just issued its second investor warning about the pitfalls of using the Internet for investing, and added that a review would be done of the Libor/Euribor scandal. Mr Bernardino said that his authority should be granted powers to supervise more types of pensions than it was currently allowed to do. 

For his part, Mr Enria argued that although bank deleveraging was necessary, this should not be achieved by cutting lending to businesses and households.

Press release

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