EBF advisor: Liga Semane
k
Publication date: 30 April 2020
k
EBF Key Messages
In light of the upcoming report on the application of the General Data Protection Regulation, the European Banking Federation would like to share its key messages, which it has also submitted to the Commission through the membership of the EC multi-stakeholder expert group on the GDPR.
Avoiding fragmentation between EU member state authorities
- Interpretation of GDPR or general approaches towards data protection by national Data Protection Authorities should avoid fragmentation.
- Lack of a consistent interpretation across member states may lead to an increased operational burden and legal uncertainty for the banking sector, making it more difficult for banks to scale their services and provide cross-border services.
- For example, diverging views on the use of legitimate interest, as seen in the Netherlands, can trigger unaligned approaches in different jurisdictions.
- By issuing model Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) DPAs aim at more certainty, but multiple model SCCs could cause fragmentation, particularly if guidance differs slightly per country.
- Consistency across the EU should be ensured in order to facilitate the development of a single market for retail financial services, a long-standing ambition of policy makers.
Transferring data across borders
- Banks support the European Commission’s ongoing work on developing revised Standard Contractual Clauses, as SCC’s enable fast and efficient exporting and importing of data while providing a high-level of protection of data subjects rights.
- We would also encourage an alignment of the SCCs with the provision of Article 28, so that the data controller exporting the data to the data processor in the third party would not be obliged to enter into both – the SCC and the data processing agreement.
- Banks support the continuing work of the European Commission to pursue and sign adequacy decisions with third countries as continuing divergence between jurisdictions complicates certain aspects of banks operations.
Applying new technologies
- The development of technologies such as AI or blockchain and the level of adoption by companies might be limited depending on the interpretation that supervisors could make of those principles and how they apply to the use of technologies.
- To cater a global data economy, Europe needs to increase the speed of technology adoption in order to not risk lagging behind other regions.
- Supervisory authorities should understand the interactions among the principles set in the GDPR and the needs of technology developments and assess compliance.
Contact:
Liga Semane, Policy Adviser – Data and Innovation, l.semane@ebf.eu
Subscribe to the EBF Weekly + FinReg Agenda
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
Subscribe to the EBF Morning Brief
The EBF Morning Brief is published Monday through Friday morning and brings you the top banking headlines, relevant announcements from the EU institutions and the latest from the EBF and its members, national banking associations in 32 countries in Europe. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
The post EBF key messages to inform the preparation of the EC report on the application of the GDPR appeared first on EBF.
]]>Digital Finance Europe to inspire financial innovation in EU
- First major international fintech conference in Brussels set for 26 Sept.
- Joint initiative by the European Banking Federation and B-Hive
- Open banking, blockchain, payments, AI, cybersecurity in focus
BRUSSELS, 10 September 2018 – The European Banking Federation has teamed up with B-Hive for Digital Finance Europe 2018, the first major international fintech conference in Brussels, on 26 September in the auditorium of the Belgian National Bank. EBF and B-Hive share the common objective of enabling financial innovation in Europe while leveraging the regulatory and financial knowledge that Brussels and the EU has to offer.
The main topics discussed will be the impact of financial technology on business and regulation in Europe. Under the title Partnering for Growth attention will go to the developments in the key issues in financial technology, including open banking and the EU’s PSD2 directive, the application blockchain technology in finance, cybersecurity, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Combining the regulatory expertise of the EBF with the fintech network of B-Hive puts in place the means for making Europe a stronghold for financial innovation. Digital Finance Europe brings together regulatory stakeholders. EU policy can be a tool for European financial institutions to boost growth, form the right partnerships and accelerate secure technology adoption.
Says Wim Mijs, Chief Executive Officer of the EBF:
“Digital Finance Europe marks a special moment in the rapidly changing financial sector of Europe. It is a unique moment to foster a dialogue between industry leaders but also a chance for policy makers to emphasise their ambitions on financial innovation. We are very pleased to cooperate with B-Hive, a partnership that promises to benefit the European financial services landscape and support the EU fintech plans on many levels.”
Says Fabian Vandenreydt, Executive Chairman, B-Hive:
“I am very much looking forward to Digital Finance Europe, as B-Hive and the European Banking Federation are joining forces to further steer collaboration between European banks, fintechs and regulators in domains that are on top of everyone’s agenda. I am sure our distinguished speakers will be a fresh source of inspiration to continue scaling-up our common endeavour for innovative, resilient and secure digital finance throughout Europe.”
Top speakers include Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy & Society; Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board at the European Central Bank; Gottfriedt Leibbrandt, CEO of SWIFT; and MEP Caroline Nagtegaal. Other speakers include experts from the European Commission, European Parliament, ENISA, many financial services executives and technology providers.
More information on the speakers and programme: http://www.digitalfinanceeurope.com/
Media contact:
Raymond Frenken, Head of Communications, European Banking Federation
+32 2 508 3748, r.frenken@ebf.eu
Valentin Thiteux, Communications Manager, B-Hive
+32 479 61 94 18 valentin.thiteux@b-hive.eu
About the European Banking Federation:
The European Banking Federation is the voice of the European banking sector, bringing together 32 national banking associations in Europe that collectively represent some 3,500 banks – large and small, wholesale and retail, local and international – employing aproximately two million people. EBF members represent banks that make available loans to the European economy in excess of €20 trillion and that securely handle more than 400 million payment transactions per day. Launched in 1960, the EBF is committed to creating a single market for financial services in the European Union and to supporting policies that foster economic growth. www.ebf.eu
About B-Hive:
B-Hive is a European collaborative innovation fintech platform that brings together major banks, insurers and market infrastructure players. Together, the platform works on common innovation programs and build bridges between corporate partners and the start-up and scale-up community members. B-Hive aims to put Brussels on the map as the smart gateway to Europe and leverage on the opportunities offered by the digital transformation for the financial services industry. B-Hive believes that building bridges between important fintech hubs and the Eurozone enables both European and non-European companies to grow and expand. www.b-hive.eu
Subscribe to the EBF Weekly + FinReg Agenda
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
Subscribe to the EBF Morning Brief
The EBF Morning Brief is published Monday through Friday morning and brings you the top banking headlines, relevant announcements from the EU institutions and the latest from the EBF and its members, national banking associations in 32 countries in Europe. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
The post Digital Finance Europe to inspire financial innovation in EU appeared first on EBF.
]]>Publication date: 16 September 2016
Introduction
The EBF is interested to investigate Blockchain / DLTs as a smart way of boosting innovative solutions for multiple use cases in different business lines and with several purposes, both for new revenues enhancement and processes streamlining.
However, it is fair to mention that the usage of these technologies is premature for massive adoption and before setting into production we need to be sure that the DLTs-of-choice are bank-grade, scalable and able to resolve both privacy and security issues.
We are also in agreement that opportunities and potential risks have to be thoroughly analysed. However we feel that the DLT will offer a number of benefits once the vital prerequisites have been met. We believe that the DLT can have a considerable impact on existing banking industry infrastructures, roles and functions of financial intermediaries, back office related securities processes, communication, interoperability and competition.
The main business lines where we find more applications for the blockchain are International Payments, Global Transactional Banking (mainly Cash Management / Cash Pooling and Supply Chain Finance) and also Capital Markets using smart contract and redesigning cash products.
In a more infrastructural angle we are interested in projects like cash on ledger for micropayments, settlement coins to get rid of cryptocurrency usage in different blockchains and smart payments applied to payrolls, unbanked/remittances/government bonifications, etc. We believe there are some guiding principles which are helpful to keep in mind when assessing the legal and regulatory considerations relating to DLT. These are set out as follows:
1. A flexible and pragmatic approach – As noted above, DLT is at an early stage of development and deployment. Therefore, it is important that any regulatory approach to DLT does not implicitly limit or constrain firms’ ability to test and develop DLT solutions. Any specific regulatory response to DLT should be fully considered and highly informed, formulated in collaboration with the industry, demonstrably necessary based on evidence, and proportionate to the consideration being addressed. Furthermore, if a situation arises where the use of DLT could pose a challenge to compliance with a certain regulation, we would advocate that policymakers are pragmatic in resolving such situations; the possibility of DLT not fitting within existing regulation should not necessarily be viewed negatively, given that the current regulatory framework has been constructed without taking account of the development of DLT.
2. Regulate the specific application and not DLT – In principle, DLT should be recognised as a technology which can be used as a platform on which financial services activities can be undertaken, rather than as an activity in and of itself. As a consequence, while there may be aspects of the regulatory framework relevant to DLT as a technology platform, this is distinct from applying a regulatory framework to the regulated financial activity which utilises DLT.
3. Furthermore, the potential uses for DLT are numerous and diverse. The regulatory framework needs to be sufficiently cognisant of the diverse potential applications of DLT that are adaptable to operating across multiple activities and services. Consequently, the adoption of a “one size fits all” regulatory framework for DLT is unlikely to be effective or proportionate.
4. Equally, it is important that unregulated functions do not become regulated solely as a result of the deployment of DLT. While it may be the case that DLT could be used to perform an unregulated function in an inappropriate manner, any regulatory action in such cases should be determined on a case-by-case basis, and the use of DLT per se should not be the principal driver of any such regulatory action.
5. Harmonised international approach – DLT by its nature is distributed. Existing public blockchain networks can be seen operating across many jurisdictions, as the technology is not limited by geographic boundaries or a single legal and regulatory regime. In order to provide an effective regulatory framework in response to DLT developments, that framework should be based on harmonised international standards rather than on local or regional requirements.
6. To the extent that DLT forms the basis for a market infrastructure, for example, ESMA should be mindful of existing global standards and bodies, such as the CPSSIOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMIs), which may provide a useful supra-national framework for determining the appropriate regulatory construct.
However, it remains essential that in any case potential adaptation of current regulatory framework does not contradict the underlying principles, nor weakens financial stability.
Subscribe to the EBF Weekly + FinReg Agenda
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
Subscribe to the EBF Morning Brief
The EBF Morning Brief is published Monday through Friday morning and brings you the top banking headlines, relevant announcements from the EU institutions and the latest from the EBF and its members, national banking associations in 32 countries in Europe. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
The post Final EBF draft response to the ESMA Discussion Paper on the Distributed Ledger Technology Applied to Securities Markets appeared first on EBF.
]]>