Europe’s financial regulators, like the rest of society, are bracing for the prospect that social distancing may prevail until a coronavirus vaccine or effective treatment is found.
That means disrupting regulatory routines that, akin to old-fashioned relationship banking, rely heavily on office visits and in-person meetings.
“We are not going to come back to the old world,” Peter Mihalik, acting executive director of the European Banking Authority, said in an interview.
The Paris-based EBA, the chief rule-setter for Europe’s banks, expects a significant drop in its 9,000 annual visitors as well as travel by its staff due to the outbreak. Trip bookers have already been reassigned internally.
While it does not directly oversee individual lenders, the EBA has a constant stream of national regulators into its office to develop rules, as well as frequent consultations and public hearings with industry and outside experts.
Many of those discussions will move online for the foreseeable future or perhaps take place with only some participants physically in the room.
“I believe that we are not looking at the new world in a binary fashion that it is either physical or virtual, it will be more of a hybrid or mixed mode,” Mihalik said.
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