JOINT PRESS RELEASE
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Pillar II project conclusion “The impact of banking regulation on employment”
BRUSSELS, 18 November 2020 – Since 2007, employment in the banking sector has experienced significative changes due to several factors including the 2008 financial crisis, the growth of digitalisation, market changes, and an increasingly complex EU regulatory framework.
The European Social Partners (UNI Europa Finance, EBF-BCESA, ESBG and EACB) therefore set out to analyse the positive and negative effects of changes in the European banking regulatory environment on employment in the sector.
Today at the final conference of the European banking social partners’ Pillar II project on “The impact of banking regulation on employment: Analysing best practice at European, national and company level and developing joint approaches through European Social Dialogue”, the project report was presented, analysing the positive and negative impacts of regulation on employment. This study also had the objective of exchanging and collecting good European, national, sectoral and company/multinational practices on how banks and their workers deal with the impact of regulation. It also lays down the foundations for a joint European Social Partner approach, which was discussed today.
“The tightening of economic environment and banking regulation, digitalisation, the entry of new competitors and concentration of banks put pressure on competitiveness and jobs,” said Dr Jens Thau, Chairman of the EBF-BCESA
According to the report, the overall result was that all topics are moderately to strongly influenced by regulation. The main impact was on employment levels in compliance, job profiles and workload.
Pia Desmet, UNI Europa Finance Vice President, said: “Collective bargaining agreements remain the best solution to mitigate effectively any negative impacts on workers and working conditions.” She added: “A genuine social dialogue at all levels is needed now more than ever to keep the sector attractive, including by offering new quality employment opportunities.”
Michael Kammas, Vice-Chairman of EBF-BCESA said: “To maintain a healthy and sustainable European banking sector it is important to have a regulatory environment which ensures and is conducive to a level playing field across all sectors.”
The study shows that over the next two years, there is an increasing expectation for further negative development of the economy with mergers, consolidations, the loss of market share and job cuts. As FinTechs and digitalisation are major threats and in order to keep pace, banks must succeed in their digital transformation and they ask that the same regulations are applied internationally and to BigTechs.
William Portelli, UNI Europa Finance Coordinator for the European Bank Sector Social Dialogue, added: “We must ensure a sustainable digital transformation of the sector, to protect workers and jobs, as well as the industry, and ensure an essential community service for a value-driven economy.”
Chris De Noose, Managing Director of ESBG highlighted: “Decision-makers need to pursue a more proportionate approach to applying regulation, as higher compliance costs and overly complex rules affect some banks heavily. Additional use of the proportionality principle would also help level out the playing field as a result of competition from less traditional financial companies.”
Maureen Hick, UNI Europa Finance Director, noted: “Implementing regulation while staff numbers have been reduced can lead to an increased workload and stress. Workers should have access to the necessary training opportunities and resources must be allocated in the best way possible for the good of the bank, its employees and society as a whole.”
The report showed an increase in the costs of doing business including compliance costs, capital requirements and additional compliance costs derived from risk monitoring practices mandated by law such as Anti-Money-Laundering rules. This prompted a downward pressure on earnings and was one of the factors that led to banks’ cost reductions, achieved mostly through downsizing, and generally putting local banks in a disadvantaged position compared to larger, multinational ones.
“It is recommended that the impact studies carried out by the authorities should also include the effects of regulation on employment, depending on the business model and the activity of the institutions and their footprint in the local economic environment,” said Herve Guider, Managing Director of EACB.
Michael Budolfsen, UNI Europa Finance President, concluded: “Today marks the culmination of a four-year process analysing the impact of regulation on banking sector employment, and an important next step towards building a sustainable regulatory environment.”
The Social Partners said: “We would welcome a stronger coordination between different authorities involved in the regulatory process which would allow us to provide timely and useful input on future regulation.”
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FINAL PROJECT REPORT (EN, FR, DE, ES, IT, RO)
SOCIAL PARTNERS’ PROJECT CONCLUSIONS (EN, FR, DE, ES, IT, RO)
More information:
Benedetta Venanzi, Policy Adviser – International & Social Affairs B.Venanzi@ebf.eu
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About the European Banking Federation:
The European Banking Federation is the voice of the European banking sector, bringing together national banking associations from across Europe. The EBF is committed to a thriving European economy that is underpinned by a stable, secure and inclusive financial ecosystem, and to a flourishing society where financing is available to fund the dreams of citizens, businesses and innovators everywhere.
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EACB, EBF, EFAMA, ESBG, IE, PE Joint Letter
BRUSSELS, 10 June 2020 – The European Banking Federation, together with five other financial industry associations, is calling for the European Commission to establish a common ESG data register in the European Union to enhance the availability of relevant and reliable ESG data, facilitate disclosure and scale-up sustainable funding.
- The data register should focus on ESG disclosure in line with Non-Financial Reporting Directive and EU taxonomy, starting with climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives, as well as ESG data necessary to financial market participants to comply with the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.
- The register should also include relevant ESG information already collected by European and national institutions such as governments, central banks, statistical bodies, etc. The EU should open up its databases that collect environmental reporting data and make those re-usable to users of non-financial information.
- Such data should be gathered and made available digitally to users of non-financial information, not only investors but also lenders, academia, researchers, authorities and others.
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Brussels, 30 March 2020
Joint Finance Sector Social Partners Statement on COVID-19
The European social partners in the financial services sector – UNI Europa Finance, the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the European Banking Federation (EBF BCESA), the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG), the European Association of Cooperative Banks (EACB), Insurance Europe, the Association of Mutual Insurers and Insurance Cooperatives in Europe (AMICE), and the European Federation of Insurance Intermediaries (BIPAR) – would like to express their sincere sympathy to everyone directly suffering because of the COVID-19 pandemic and to profoundly thank all those risking their own health to save lives. As social partners, we are fully committed to ensuring that the European banking and insurance sectors continue to assist their customers and support European economic activities to the best of our abilities during this unprecedented pandemic crisis. This requires close and intense coordination with public authorities and for the European institutions, regulatory and supervisory authorities and the financial services sector to work together to try to neutralise as much as possible and to the best of our abilities the effects of COVID-19 on the economy. Important measures have already been taken to help the banking sector in supporting the economy. As this is a rapidly evolving situation, the social partners call on the public authorities to stand ready to take further action and use the necessary flexibility at their disposal to overcome the present difficulties.
Contact:
Luka Bohacek, L.Bohacek@ebf.eu
Benedetta Venanzi, B.Venanzi@ebf.eu
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Brussels, 8 November 2019
Joint Industry Statement: Council adoption of VAT reporting measures – payments industry remains concerned
The European Payment Institutions Federation, the European Banking Federation, the European Savings and Retail Banking Group and the European Association of Co-operative Banks note the adoption today by the ECOFIN Council of the proposal on VAT-related information reporting requirements imposed on Banks and Payment Service Providers.
Throughout the legislative procedure we have consistently raised concerns about the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposal as drafted. As outlined in our recent Joint Statement, these concerns have not been taken into account to a degree that would give comfort to the industry that the reporting requirements can be implemented with reasonable efforts and can result in meaningful information to the tax authorities. We would like to again reiterate that as an industry we are very supportive of the objectives of the proposal to fight VAT fraud but that we are simply highlighting that the adopted proposal is not in our view a proportionate and most effective way to collect this information.
Therefore, we are disappointed to see that the ECOFIN has adopted the proposal without the modifications needed by the industry. We now call upon the Member States and the Commission to closely involve the payments industry in the design of the details of the reporting framework. A constructive dialogue going forward is crucial to make sure that we build a reporting system that delivers the needed information to authorities but at the same time preserves the established way of functioning of the payments industry and does not create undue burden. We request that a joint group composed of Commission, Member State and industry expert is established with a view to achieve this.
Contact:
Anni Mykkanen, a.mykkanen@ebf.eu
Nahuel Mercedes, +32 (0)2 508 3748, n.mercedes@ebf.eu
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Brussels, 30 October 2019
Financial industry against VAT fraud: joint position paper
The European Banking Federation, European Savings and Retail Banking Group, European Association of Co-operative Banks, European Payment Institutions Federation (and their respective members) strongly support the fight against VAT and other tax fraud but are deeply concerned that in current form the proposals:
- Are disproportionate in terms of scope, volume of data required and cost
- Create significant risk
- Produce uncertainty in terms of reporting obligations
- Will not practically achieve stated objectives
With the current proposal seeking to be approved at November’s ECOFIN, we would welcome your support in terms of prompting a full review of the proposals with the active involvement of the Payments Industry. The objective would be to ensure that the proposal is not approved until it has been amended into a form that
1) Is practical and workable for the industry to deliver and
2) Meets the needs of Member States in terms of effectively combatting VAT fraud.
In current form, our firm view is that the proposal achieves neither.
It is absolutely clear that Member States must have effective and efficient tools to combat VAT and tax fraud and the Payments Industry is fully prepared to work closely to ensure that this can be delivered.
We are however troubled that whilst concerns have been raised with the Commission, including recommendations on how to improve the proposals to achieve its stated objectives and to align it with the highly complex, multi-party and rapidly evolving nature of the payments industry, we believe these have been misunderstood and in some areas simply ignored.
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BRUSSELS, 18 February 2019 – European financial services organisations have launched the Financial Data Exchange Templates (FinDatEx) platform to support the development and use of standardised templates to exchange data between European financial sector institutions.
FinDatEx aims to allow EU financial services representatives:
• To interact in order to develop technical templates.
• To coordinate and organise any standardisation work that is carried out by experts from different financial services.
• To help disseminate technical templates to other relevant EU financial services stakeholders.
FinDatEx is comprised of the European Banking Federation (EBF), the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA), Insurance Europe, the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG), the European Association of Cooperative Banks (EACB), and the European Structured Investment Products Association (EUSIPA). It is open to other European Associations who want to participate in the new structure.
The joint structure will build on the successful informal collaboration within the European Working Group (EWG). Through the improved governance structure, relevant templates for data reporting between European financial institutions are to be drafted and adopted following a clear and inclusive process.
Ghislain Périssé, who was instrumental in steering the EWG work said: “I welcome the creation of FinDatEx and look forward to contributing to its success and to continue working on the templates in this context”.
The work already initiated on a Solvency II tripartite template (TPT), European PRIIPs templates (EPT and CEPT), a European MiFID template (EMT), and a MiFID feedback template (MFT) will be continued. Other workstreams are also being assessed.
All templates are provided to the industry free of charge and are free of any intellectual property rights.
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For more information:
European Banking Federation: Raymond Frenken, Head of Communications
+32 496 52 59 47, r.frenken@ebf.eu
Insurance Europe: Richard Mackillican, Policy advisor, Communications and PR
+32 495 27 81 01, mackillican@insuranceeurope.eu
EFAMA: Gabriela Diezhandino, Director of Public Policy, +32 2 548 26 52, Gabriela.Diezhandino@efama.org
ESBG: Sebastian Stodulka, Head of Regulatory Affairs, +32 2211 1162, sebastian.stodulka@wsbi-esbg.org
EACB: Marieke van Berkel, Head of Department Retail Banking, Payments, Financial Markets, m.vanberkel@eacb.coop, + 32 2 286 98 47
EUSIPA: Thomas Wulf, Secretary General, +32 2 550 3415, wulf@eusipa.org
About the EBF:
The European Banking Federation is the voice of the European banking sector, bringing together national bankig associations from 45 countries. The EBF is committed to a thriving European economy that is underpinned by a stable, secure and inclusive financial ecosystem, and to a flourishing society where financing is available to fund the dreams of citizens, businesses and innovators everywhere. Website: www.ebf.eu Twitter: @EBFeu.
About Insurance Europe
Insurance Europe is the European insurance and reinsurance federation. Through its 34 member bodies — the national insurance associations — Insurance Europe represents all types of insurance and reinsurance undertakings, eg pan-European companies, monoliners, mutuals and SMEs.
Insurance Europe, which is based in Brussels, represents undertakings that account for around 95% of total European premium income. Insurance makes a major contribution to Europe’s economic growth and development. European insurers generate premium income of more than €1 200bn, directly employ over 950 000 people and invest over €10 100bn in the economy.
About EFAMA
EFAMA is the voice of the European investment management industry, which represents 28 member associations and 62 corporate members. At end 2017, total net assets of European investment funds reached EUR 15.6 trillion. Close to 32,000 of these funds were UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities) and close to 28,300 of these funds were AIFs (Alternative Investment Funds). Including discretionary mandates, third-party regulated asset managers managed EUR 25 trillion in Europe at end 2017.Website: www.efama.org.
About ESBG
ESBG, representing the locally focused banking model, helps savings and retail banks in 21 European countries strengthen their unique approach that focuses on providing service to local communities and boosting SMEs. An advocate for a proportionate approach to banking rules, ESBG unites at EU level some 1,000 banks, which together employ 810,000 people driven to innovate at 60,000 outlets. ESBG members have total assets of €7.1 trillion, provide €500 billion in SME loans, and serve 190 million Europeans seeking retail banking services. ESBG members are committed to further unleash the promise of sustainable, responsible 21st century banking. Website: www.wsbi-esbg.org
About EACB
The European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB) represents, promotes and defends the common interests of its 27 member institutions and of cooperative banks, with regard to banking as well as to co-operative legislation. Co-operative banks are driver of local and social growth with 3.000 locally operating banks and 53,000 outlets, they serve 209 million customers, mainly consumers, SMEs and communities. Europe’s co-operative banks represent 81 million members and 719,000 employees and have an average market share in Europe of about 20%. Website: www.eacb.coop – Twitter: @EACB_News
About EUSIPA
The European Structured Investment Products Association was founded in 2009 by the main trade bodies that at the time represented already the interests of structured product issuers in Europe’s leading markets. Currently EUSIPA’s full members are the national issuer associations from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, UK, Switzerland and The Netherlands. Next to the interest representation, EUSIPA puts its focus on product standardisation and market reporting for structured products. EUSIPA is an international non-profit association registered under Belgian law and listed in the EU transparency register. More details can be found under www.eusipa.org.
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Every Friday at noon you can receive the EBF Weekly + Financial Regulation Agenda. This agenda presents an overview of upcoming European and international meetings and conferences in financial regulation, as well as important general financial and economic events and key EBF meetings for the week ahead. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
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