Call for Tender: EU-funded project “Shaping generative AI for a sustainable and fair services economy”
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Brussels, 17 February 2025 – Connect Europe, European Banking Federation and UNI Europa are commencing an EU-funded project “Shaping generative AI for a sustainable and fair services economy”.
This is a call for subcontractors to provide expertise as part of the project led by European social partner organisations of the audiovisual, banking and telecommunications sectors.
The project aims at improving the capacity of the European social partners and their member organisations of the audiovisual, banking, and telecommunications sectors to address the economic and social impact of the development and deployment of generative AI. One of the project’s work streams consists of assessing the impact of generative AI within and across the three sectors and to identify priorities for social dialogue aiming at mitigating adverse impacts and amplifying positive effects.
We are seeking external experts to assist the project partners in implementing concise sector specific and horizontal impact assessment based on existing research and publications. The project partners seek the following from experts:
- To carry out sector specific impact assessment to improve their understanding of the impact of generative AI in the audiovisual, banking and telecommunications sectors.
- To carry out a horizontal impact assessment to identify the common impact of generative AI.
Interested parties must submit their proposals to Sébastien Leclef, Director EU Projects at UNI Europa, by email no later than 16 March 2025. The selection process will be completed by 31 March 2025.
More details can be found in the project call for tender.
About the EBF:
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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]]>EBF and its Members Call for Balances Reforms to Boost Competitiveness and Investor Participation in EU Capital Markets
Brussels, 9 September 2024 – The European Banking Federation and its members are fully engaged in supporting the completion of a European Savings and Investments Union as called by Enrico Letta in his report published in April 2024. Developing EU capital markets will contribute not only to ensuring that the digital transformation and green transition of our economies are properly funded, but will secure the bedrock upon which EU competitiveness can be relaunched.
Currently, EU capital markets are losing competitiveness, as recently highlighted, among others, by the President of the Eurogroup, Pascal Donohoe and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who recalls in the EC Strategic Agenda 2024-2029 that the fragmentation of our financial markets sees ‘’EUR 300 billion of European families’ savings transferred to foreign markets every year”. Game-changing and ambitious reforms are therefore key. In this context, we fully support the aim of the European Commission to improve retail investors’ access and participation to capital markets through the Retail Investment Strategy (RIS) to ensure that more households benefit from the prosperity generated by EU companies and SMEs.
President von der Leyen also highlighted in the new EC Agenda the need to reduce red tape and administrative burden in order to improve EU competitiveness: “Each Commissioner will be tasked with focusing on reducing administrative burdens and simplifying implementation: less red tape and reporting, more trust, better enforcement, faster permitting.”
Against this background, we are concerned that the RIS, as proposed and currently negotiated, is bound to stay the opposite course, significantly increasing complexity, costs and administrative burden not just for firms, but -most importantly- for their clients, whose customer journey is heavily complexified.
The multiplication of checks, tests, overload of information and warnings ( i.e., proposals regarding the new inducement test, new best interest test and related clauses on the “unnecessary additional features”, as well as additional disclosure of costs and charges) will disincentivize savers from investing in financial markets and will lead them to prefer easily accessible unregulated products, such as crypto assets, a trend already seen occurring with new investors.
We believe that an effective investor protection should not lead to the superimposition of excessive requirements, but rather strike the right balance between clarity, flexibility, effectiveness, variety and freedom of choice. A key element of this is, in our opinion, the reinforcement of product governance via an adequate, workable Value For Money (“VFM”) framework. Provided that the rules are drafted in a calibrated way that allows for flexibility for investment firms, VFM could be an effective tool for managing potential conflicts and ensuring product-specific scrutiny of delivered value against the considerations of a full range of qualitative and quantitative features, costs and investment targets. Among the 3 proposals, the text proposed by the European Parliament seems to be the less prejudicial basis for this approach. However, some improvements still need to be made in upcoming interinstitutional dialogue, as the proposal in many ways remains unclear, is too complex, and risks leading to price regulation and impaired competitiveness.
This text is an opportunity to demonstrate the EU can rise to the challenge of competitiveness, reducing the number and superimposition of over-protection and anti-competitive rules, and at the same time reinforce a few well-targeted measures to strengthen and develop a domestic market of European players and investors, who are the key for financing the digital and green transitions.
The EBF continues to work in this direction with its members, drawing on their experience to identify and client-oriented solutions that may foster safe and informed access to capital markets.
For more information:
Jacopo Borgognone, Senior Policy Adviser – Financing Growth, j.borgognone@ebf.eu
Gabriel Daia, Head of Communications & Public Affairs, g.daia@ebf.eu
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.x
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Between Old and New Challenges: The Role of the Capital Markets Union in Achieving Inclusive and Sustainable Growth in Europe
Article by Jacopo Borgognone, EBF Policy Advisor – Financial Markets
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The European Commission’s relaunch of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) in2020 is bound to intersect with a fast-paced revolution in the economic landscape driven by technology as well as political and societal forces pushing for the twin transition. To discuss why completing Europe’s ambitious reforms remains essential to fostering sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe, experts from the public and private sectors gathered virtually at the event co-hosted by the EBF and the Markets4Europe Campaign on Monday 6 December 2021, entitled “Are Europe’s Capital Markets Ready for the Future?”. These are the main conclusions that emerged from the discussion.
September 24, 2021, marked the first anniversary of the ambitious new Action Plan of the European Commission aimed at relaunching the CMU. Over this time, European economies – now fully embarked on the road to recovery and in search of sustainable growth – have continued to face major transformation such as an increased demand for action against climate change and the emergence of disruptive technologies. The rapid development and deployment of digital technologies and the entry of new, highly innovative FinTechs are changing the way the traditional financial ecosystem operates. Meanwhile, to achieve the goals set by the European Green Deal, the European Commission has pledged to mobilize at least €1 trillion in sustainable investments over the next decade, requiring an unprecedented shift in both public and private funds to finance the transition. Capital markets are a growing part of this process.
The following takeaways emerged from the discussion:
- There is a close, mutually reinforcing but also inter-dependent relationship between the CMU and the sustainable and digital transformations. The CMU will help both transformations (eg by financing sustainability or digital innovation that requires risk capital and by simply adding a new channel of financing and investment). In turn, the twin transition will also help the CMU (eg through sustainable finance bringing new investors to markets and digital tools helping attract more investors and reducing costs for issuance or trading). However, this also means that obstacles on any of the three paths could slow down the others. In particular, the EU’s global leadership in sustainability can only translate into global competitiveness with greater progress in entrepreneurship capacity through capital markets financing.
- The CMU needs progress on all three fronts. EU Financial Markets should be made more efficient by growing scale, widening the investor base, and increasing capital supply. Cross-border investments should be as easy and reliable as domestic investments by removing current structural barriers, harmonising different sets of rules and designing the right trading and post-trading infrastructure. The Capital Markets Union should enable digital and financial innovation by unlocking the potential of the data-driven economy, preparing the regulatory ground for the digital financial transformation and by promoting fair and transparent competition.
- The CMU requires attention to both the ‘CM’ and the ‘U’ parts. To create a deep and liquid CMU, one need to develop/deepen capital markets (‘CM’) and integrate (‘U’) them. While the Union dimension (integration of markets) is important to draw the full benefits of the EU’s potential investor base and innovative capacity, the development/deepening of markets is vital. Some participants even called for a sequencing of these two processes, with the development being more of a priority than the integration of the markets.
- The CMU project requires both legislative changes and a change in culture. In addition to the needed legislative reforms, investors and entrepreneurs need to develop new attitudes to demand and supply risk capital investments.
- National policies matter. While the EU’s ambition in confronting structural obstacles to the CMU is useful, many of the most important remaining cross-border obstacles, such as fragmented insolvency frameworks and double taxation, require national action. National best practices in facilitating investment and entrepreneurship are also instrumental in developing markets.
To watch the full discussion, please click here.
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More detailed summary
- The Three Inter-Twined Challenges
- The Green Capital Markets Challenge
The United Nations estimates that $5 trillion to $7 trillion in annual funding is required to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Similarly, to achieve the goals set by the European Green Deal, the European Commission has pledged to mobilize at least €1 trillion in sustainable investments over the next decade. This clearly indicates that both public and private funds are needed to leverage capital markets to achieve the financing goals of the transition.
Capital markets are a growing part of this process, driven by the increased demand for sustainable bonds observed during the pandemic (in 2021, global sustainable bond issuance exceeded $700 billion, compared to the 400 billion of 2020).
The European Union retains a clear leading role in scaling up sustainable finance not only in terms of market issuance (50% of the outstanding sustainable bonds are issued in the EU), but also by virtue of regulatory initiatives aimed at shifting investment flows towards ESG objectives to support the European Green Deal.
- The Digital Capital Markets Challenge
The rapid development and deployment of digital technologies and the entry of new, highly innovative FinTechs are changing the way the traditional financial ecosystem operates.
In this context, discussants identified three key drivers of transformation :(a) the exponential uptake of Distributed Ledgers Technologies (DLT), such as Blockchain; (b) the diffusion of data-centric models, both inside and outside traditional value-chains; and (c) the growth of new trading platforms providing a direct access point to retail investors.
DLT, for instance, offers both new challenges and new solutions. At the same time, DLT’s current lack of interoperability and the risk of further fragmentation anticipate new challenges facing the financial landscape of tomorrow.
Neither sustainability nor digitalization can happen without the support of more liquid, efficient and integrated capital markets enabled by the CMU. This is due to three key reasons:
- In the coming years, financing the green and digital transition will require increased levels of risk capital to complement bank-based financing to support innovation and in the presence of intangible assets.
- The completion of the CMU plays a crucial role in leveraging capital markets and “crowding-in” investors to scale up and accelerate the green transition. These elements are mutually reinforcing, as the absence of more integrated markets can undo the successes achieved on other fronts.
- Finally, completing the CMU remains essential also to enabling secure, trusted, and sustainable financial innovation in the digital space.
- What do we need to do to get there?
To develop EU capital markets capable of meeting old and new challenges, discussants identified three those key reforms that – if completed- would enable a future-proof and fit-for-purpose CMU:
- EU Financial Markets should be made more efficient. This can be achieved by:
- Growing scale – i.e., by supporting the high-growth SMEs’ access to public markets to tap risk capital, for example by simplifying listing rules and making companies more visible to investors.
- Widening the investor base – i.e., by encouraging retail participation in capital markets, fostering financial education and equity culture in Europe and ensuring that adequate long-term products such as ELTIFs are available to investors.
- Increasing capital supply – i.e., by encouraging Members States to channel long-term savings such as pensions into capital markets to finance entrepreneurship.
- Cross-border investments should be as easy and reliable as domestic investments. This can be achieved by:
- Removing current structural barriers – including those identified by the first Giovannini report such as ovelycomplex Withholding Tax relief and refund procedures.
- Harmonising different sets of rules – i.e., by making the outcome of market participants’ insolvencies more predictable.
- Designing the right trading and post-trading infrastructure – to enable the development of primary and secondary markets for sustainable and innovative assets.
- The Capital Markets Union should enable digital and financial innovation. This can be achieved by:
- Unlocking the potential of the data-driven economy – i.e., by making reliable data more accessible through the European Single Access Point.
- Preparing the regulatory ground for the digital financial transformation – i.e., by adapting existing financial regulations to new products and technologies before changing them, while promoting the “same activity, same risk, same rule” and “technological neutrality” principles.
- Promoting fair and transparent competition – between incumbent and new market participants.
To achieve these results, it takes a collective effort. Therefore, the Markets4Europe campaign, and the EBF as its initiator, remain committed to supporting national governments and European stakeholders in implementing the ambitious reforms needed to achieve a truly functioning CMU.
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CMU: How to foster investors’ participation in EU Capital Markets in a changing environment?
While fostering investors’ participation in financial markets is one of the priorities of the Capital Markets Union, the emergence of new risks requires adjusted rules. Financial education remains key if we want to bring more investors to financial markets in a safe manner.
Article by Pauline Guérin, EBF Senior Policy Advisor – Financing Growth
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A year ago, the European Commission (EC) published its new Capital Markets Union (CMU) action plan composed of 16 actions and aiming at “getting money – investments and savings – flowing across the EU so that it can benefit consumers, investors and companies, regardless of where they are located”.
Market-based financing is essential to sustain the recovery and to finance the twin transition to a greener and more digital EU economy. However, we know that one of the key challenges the EU is facing is the low level of investment by EU retail investors in capital markets. We also know empowering investors is particularly high on Commissioner McGuinness’s priorities. The EC intends to attract more retail investors by simplifying rules in particular regarding disclosure of information on financial products. One of the proposals is the development of individual pension tracking systems which should encourage investors to supplement public pensions with life-long saving and investment.
In this context, the EC published a public consultation last spring to tailor the future EU retail investment strategy to investors’ needs and to be published in 2022. As rightly pointed out by the EC in its communication dated 25th November 2021, “it is thus essential to empower retail investors to use these opportunities while providing the right level of protection”. Issues high on the agenda are sustainable investments, the digitalization of markets, and the implementation of distribution and transparency rules under MiFID II.
- Disclosure to clients and inducements regime
While it is now widely recognised that (potential) investors are facing an information overload which may discourage them from investing in financial markets, we should also make sure not to create more confusion by amending the distribution rules now that they have just been fully implemented by financial intermediaries. On the contrary, the EC might rather consider working on consistency across regulatory requirements.
Inducements are under scrutiny by the ESAs and the EC as being potentially unfair to clients. We should also highlight that MiFID II rules already strictly frame the perception of inducements. One should also keep in mind that at this point in time and in many Member States, the majority of investors are not ready to pay for any financial service, so it is one of the ways for financial intermediaries to get a payment from the services they provide. The inducement regime is also key to ensuring open architecture and the distribution of diversified products.
- The emergence of new risks
We believe the current regulatory framework may entail the emergence of new risks which should be considered by regulators. Social media and other unregulated platforms carry risks regarding the reliability and quality of information. The reliability and quality of information can sometimes be doubtful, and those platforms cannot provide the right protection against misinformation.
By framing too strictly the distribution of investment products, some investors may be tempted to invest in non-regulated products such as crypto assets or virtual currencies which are easily available online driving them away from financial markets. It’s now time to appropriately frame those unregulated products at the EU level.
- The need for a high degree of financial literacy
As advocated by the EBF in the Markets4Europe campaign, investment culture can only evolve with investors and entrepreneurs who are comfortable with their investment choices. Therefore, the EU needs a major EU campaign for financial literacy to educate potential investors. In this context, we can only strongly support the launch of the joint EC/OECD-INFE project to develop a financial competence framework for the EU.
To conclude, if there is an urgent need to move forward in framing the marketing, the issuance, and the distribution of unregulated products, investors will not be able to take part in financial markets if they do not properly understand the functioning, characteristics of financial markets and products. If investor protection is key, it goes hand in hand with financial education and this can only be done at the EU level with a strong commitment from the Member States to the Capital Markets Union.
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]]>CONSULTATION RESPONSE
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ESMA consultation on amendments to MAR Guidelines on delayed disclosure of inside information: EBF response
BRUSSELS, 6 September 2021 –
The EBF has responded to the consultation of the European Securities and Markets Authority on its Guidelines on delayed disclosure of inside information under the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) in relation to its interaction with prudential supervision.
In its response, the EBF has highlighted the following key points:
- Regarding the disclosure of decisions regarding redemptions, reductions and repurchases of own funds instruments, the EBF would like to state that this information should only be treated as inside information once the authorisation of the Prudential Competent Authority has been granted, and, in addition, the institution has sufficient certainty that the redemption, reduction and repurchase of own funds will take place. The same reasoning should apply to other decisions where the approval of a committee, third-party or authority is still pending.
- Regarding the disclosure of draft SREP decisions, it should be noted that draft SREP decisions in the view of the EBF do not yet meet the requirement for precision to be qualified as inside information. It is only that they can be seen as representing precise information once the dialogue with the supervisor has been concluded and the final SREP letter is received, which also details the measures that the bank has to comply with in the end. Other supervisory measures (question 8 of the consultation paper) should be subject to a case-by-case assessment.
- Regarding the disclosure of the Pillar 2 Requirement (P2R), the EBF would like to stress that there is already extensive disclosure of this information as part of the Pillar 3 disclosures. A case-by-case assessment about the actual price sensitivity of this information is a more appropriate approach.
- Regarding the disclosure of Pillar 2 Guidance (P2G), the EBF considers that as a matter of principle P2G should not be considered as inside information, due to the fact that this is a non-binding requirement. P2G does not have any impact on the maximum distributable amount (MDA) of an issuer. Instead, a non-disclosure of this information would ensure that the P2G remains an important instrument in the supervisory dialogue. This is best accomplished if it remains confidential and also aligned with the spirit of the regulation. Finally, it is also important to remark that is a very common situation that institutions meet their P2G and that those situations should not be considered as exceptional.
Lastly, where information needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis regarding its potential status as inside information, it is important to also reflect on the issuer’s responsibility to assess this. Therefore, we would hope that this could also be reflected better in the language of the ESMA communication.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Lukas Bornemann, Policy Adviser – Prudential Policy & Supervision, l.bornamann@ebf.eu
ABOUT THE EBF:
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. Website: www.ebf.eu
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]]>LEGAL OPINION
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Legal opinion on the compliance of the parallel stacks approach with Basel Accord
BRUSSELS, 23 June 2021 – A legal opinion by a European Network of leading continental law firms found that the so-called parallel stacks approach – applying the output floor to the Basel Minimum Requirements and implementing the result as an additional, stand-alone capital requirement – is compliant with Basel Accord. The study, commissioned by the European Banking Federation (EBF), was undertaken by Chiomenti, Cuatrecasas, Gide Loyrette Nouel and Gleiss Lutz law firms.
The EBF has identified a number of concrete options to make the implementation of Basel IV more suited to the European specificities, including the possibility to implement the output floor as a separate capital requirement where only internationally agreed capital buffers are applied (the so-called parallel stack approach), solutions to avoid penalising unrated corporates which form the vast majority of companies in Europe, a cap to the operational risk requirement in line with other jurisdictions, as well as maintaining the options already enacted in European legislation (CVA, SME supporting factor, etc.). All these elements are key to ensure the proper implementation of the Basel Framework in Europe.
The legal study findings confirm that the parallel stacks approach can be used by the EU as transposition of the Accord. This approach would respect the mandate received from the Council and the Parliament. This would be in line with the direction to avoid a significant increase of overall capital requirements, put forward by the G20. The alternative of calculating and applying the output floor to the Additional European Requirements would go beyond the conditions outlined in the Basel III framework. This would constitute an unwarranted, disproportionate ‘gold-plating’ exercise, whereby powers of an EU directive are extended when being transposed into the national laws of a member state.
In light of the upcoming EU implementation of the reform and the potential impact of the COVID-19 crisis, Copenhagen Economics has published a report assessing the impact of the reform on the EU banking sector and the real economy. Among other things, the research commissioned by EBF found that the reform could increase the capital need of European banks by between EUR 170-230 bn. The impact on bank customers as an annual increase in costs associated with lending is estimated at EUR 25-30 bn.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Ruta Barthet, Senior Media and Communications Officer, r.barthet@ebf.eux
Gonzalo Gasos, Senior Director of Prudential Policy & Supervision, g.gasos@ebf.eu
ABOUT THE EBF:
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. Website: www.ebf.eu
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Over the past year, the European banking industry has been hit by volatile markets, worsening economic conditions and business continuity challenges. As a result, lenders have moved more quickly to build real-time data and analytics into their credit risk systems.
Join industry experts as they explore the impact across the banking landscape and how default assessment plays a pivotal role in the recovery:
- The general trend in credit quality at Europe’s banks
- The nonperforming loan market: Pandemic versus global financial crisis
- Asset quality deterioration: Key constraints and challenges
- How credit score distribution differs between 2019 and 2020
- Key lessons from trade credit data and alternative data sets
WATCH THE FULL WEBINAR
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DOWNLOAD PRESENTATIONS
Gonzalo Gasos
Senior Director of Prudential Policy & Supervision
European Banking Federation
MODERATOR
Ben Meggeson
News Desk Manager – European financials, S&P Global Market Intelligence
ORGANISERS
S&P Global Market Intelligence
S&P Global Market Intelligence integrates financial and industry data, research and news into tools that help track performance, assess credit risk, understand competitive and industry dynamics, generate alpha, identify investment ideas, and perform valuation. S&P Global Market Intelligence is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI). For more information, visit www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence. Twitter handle: @SPGMarketIntel
European Banking Federation
The European Banking Federation is the voice of the European banking sector, bringing together national banking 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.
The post Managing Credit Risk during the COVID-19 Crisis & Recovery Phase in Europe appeared first on EBF.
]]>FROM THE EUROPEAN BANKING FEDERATION
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Data reporting: EBF supports single EU data dictionary
- Banking industry invites EBA, ESCB and SRB to move swiftly towards a common data dictionary
BRUSSELS, 19 February 2021 – The European Banking Federation is calling on all financial sector authorities in the European Union to support the creation of a single EU data dictionary. Such dictionary is to be the key cornerstone underpinning a much-needed integrated and standardized framework for data reporting that can contribute to better supervision and support financial stability by enabling improved data quality and reducing the reporting burden for financial institutions.
The European banking industry, through the EBF, fully supports the creation of a single EU data reporting dictionary as the basis of an integrated and standardised EU framework. Data requests to banks by EU and national authorities have increased significantly in recent years. Banks provide the data that is requested but the lack of harmonized governance adds to unwanted complexity and holds back efficiency.
“A single dictionary is the keystone of the integrated reporting project,” says Wim Mijs, Chief Executive Officer of the EBF. “It is about improving efficiency and consistency, about avoiding duplication, and about avoiding unnecessary complexity. Delivering this single dictionary requires a pragmatic approach and close cooperation between all financial supervisors and our industry. The banking industry needs to be part of the design and development of the data dictionary; only then we can turn this vision into reality. As banking sector we are keen to make this happen.”
Recent comments by Jose Manuel Campa, Chair of the European Banking Authority (EBA) on the creation of a single data reporting dictionary are encouraging. In an interview with Börsen-Zeitung Mr Campa said “There is a fair enough consensus that having a dictionary is one of the goals. That is likely to be one of our key proposals in the feasibility study. It makes a lot of sense and I certainly hope that there will be an agreement on that.”
EBA is currently conducting a feasibility study on integrated reporting in the context of Article 430c of the Capital Requirements Regulation. A draft report of this study is expected in the first quarter of this year. The EBF hopes that the results of the EBA study will support its four principles defined in its vision for integrated data reporting: define once, report once, share information and enhance governance.
Europe’s central banks already have expressed their support for this approach. The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) in September published its report[1] as input to the EBA feasibility study. The ESCB report proposed a number of measures to make bank reporting more efficient, recognizing concerns from both lawmakers and the banking industry.
In order to move rapidly towards the goal, the EBF invites all relevant authorities to leverage on the Banks’ Integrated Reporting Dictionary project, known as BIRD. This BIRD project already involves the European System of Central Banks and the banking industry in the design of a single regulatory dictionary. The federation encourages the EBA and the Single Resolution Board (SRB) to join forces in completing the project and to start designing a new reporting requests governance for which the single regulatory dictionary is the cornerstone.
For more information:
Francisco Saravia, Senior Policy Advisor, European Banking Federation, +32 2 508 3711, f.saravia@ebf.eu
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 federation 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
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Publication date: 30 September 2019
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Statement of the European Credit Sector Associations (ECSAs) Benchmarks Regulation: The banking sector welcomes the recent statements by the European Commission and ESMA on the upcoming migration to the reformed EURIBOR methodology and the migration from EONIA to €STR.
The European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB), the European Banking Federation (EBF) and the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) welcome some recent statements by Mr Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission) in a communication to the ECSAs dated 03 September 2019 and in a speech by Mr Steven Maijoor (ESMA) which took place in Frankfurt during the 2nd Roundtable on euro risk-free rates, with respect to the current critical benchmarks reform.
In its communication, the European Commission considers that recent developments in the work of the euro risk-free rate working group and also the decision by Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) to grant to the European Money Markets Institute (EMMI) an authorisation to continue publishing the EURIBOR rate “provide a clear indication that EURIBOR is now fully compliant with the applicable benchmark rules and that EURIBOR continues to reflect the underlying inter-bank market appropriately. The FSMA statements also provide assurances that EURIBOR can continue to serve as a valid reference rate for legacy contracts”. In addition, the European Commission is looking forward to reaching a comparable outcome for EONIA, so that EONIA can continue as a reference rate until all contracts have switched to referencing €STR. In Mr Dombrovskis’ opinion, the path envisaged by the euro risk-free rate working group for the transition to €STR is sound. The Commission will also continue to engage with all market participants to ensure a smooth transition to €STR.
In his speech, Mr Maijoor has the conviction that the authorisation of EURIBOR by the FSMA already confirms that the new hybrid methodology is robust, resilient and transparent and allows EU supervised entities to continue using EURIBOR for the foreseeable future. He stressed that the goal of the new provisions is to increase contractual robustness and he believes that ‘the new hybrid methodology measures the same underlying interest of the previous methodology of EURIBOR, just in a better, BMR-compliant way’.
Both statements are helpful to the respective members of the associations in understanding how to prepare for the forthcoming migrations from EURIBOR to EURIBOR with the hybrid methodology, and the calculation of EONIA based on €STR+8.5bp spread until the full transition from EONIA to €STR.
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EUROPOL, EBF, EUROJUST JOINT PRESS RELEASE
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159 arrests and 766 money mules identified
in global action week against money muling
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- 159 arrested, 409 suspects interviewed by law enforcement, 766 money
mules and 59 money mule organisers identified as a result of the European
Money Mule Action ‘EMMA3’, a global law enforcement action week against money muling (20 to 24 November)
”””””””””””””””””””””””’ - Money mules are individuals recruited by criminal organisations as money
laundering intermediaries to receive and transfer illegally obtained funds
between bank accounts and/or countries
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- EMMA3 saw 26 countries participating, as well as Europol, Eurojust, the
European Banking Federation (EBF), 257 banks and private-sector partners
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- The joint money muling awareness campaign #DontBeaMule kicks off
today to alert the public to this crime
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The Hague, 28 November – Law enforcement authorities from 26 countries, supported by Europol, Eurojust and the European Banking Federation (EBF), have joined forces in the third coordinated global action against money muling, with the European Money Mule Action ‘EMMA3’. During an action week from 20 to 24 November 2017, 159 individuals were arrested across Europe, 409 were interviewed by law enforcement authorities and 766 money mules were identified. EMMA3 has evolved from previous editions towards targeting not only the money mules, but also the money mule organisers. This resulted in 59 recruiters/organisers being identified.
Money mules are recruited by criminal organisations as money laundering intermediaries to receive and transfer illegally obtained funds between bank accounts and/or countries. This illicit money muling helps fund other forms of organised crime, such as drug dealing, human trafficking and online fraud.
With the support of 257 banks and private-sector partners, 1 719 money mule transactions were reported, with total losses amounting to almost EUR 31 million. Among those money mule transactions, more than 90% were linked to cyber-related crimes, such as phishing, online auction fraud, Business Email Compromise (BEC) and CEO fraud. For the first time, romance scams and holiday fraud (booking fraud) were reported by law enforcement authorities. Also, an increasing role of cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) transactions was identified in the money laundering schemes used by the criminals.
The third EMMA action week is the continuation of a project conducted under the umbrella of the EMPACT Cybercrime Payment Fraud Operational Action Plan, designed to combat online and payment card fraud, and led by the Netherlands. Building on the success of the first and second EMMA operations, EMMA3 saw the participation of law enforcement authorities from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Secret Service (USSS).
Europol and Eurojust organised various operational and coordination meetings in The Hague to discuss the unique approach of each Member State to tackle money muling in their respective country. During the action week, both agencies supported the operations by setting up a command post at Europol and a judicial coordination centre at Eurojust to assist the national authorities. This allowed for real-time cross-checks against Europol’s databases of the data gathered during the actions, and intelligence gathering for further analysis, as well as swift forwarding and facilitation of the execution of European Investigation Orders. Europol also supported the actions on the spot by deploying a specialised officer equipped with a mobile office to Italy.
“EMMA3 shows how a close public-private partnership between law enforcement, judicial authorities and the banking sector is essential to effectively tackle the illegal activity of money muling. We remain fully committed to working together in the fight against money laundering and other financial crimes and to further support joint initiatives like EMMA.’’ Europol – Eurojust – European Banking Federation (EBF)
“I thought it was part of the job”… Don’t be Duped. Don’t Be a Mule.
Criminals often dupe innocent victims into laundering money on their behalf with the promise of easy money by using seemingly legitimate job adverts, online posts, social media and other methods. Newcomers to a country, the unemployed, students and people in economic hardship often feature amongst the most susceptible to this crime.
Even if money mules act unwittingly, they are committing a crime by laundering the illicit proceeds of crime. Depending on the country’s legal framework, they can face a prison sentence, fine or community service, and the prospect of never again being able to secure a mortgage or open a bank account.
“Uncovering these money muling schemes and informing the public are vital to prevent criminals from taking advantage of unsuspecting individuals. Legitimate companies will never ask individuals to use their bank accounts or transfer money through their accounts. Nobody should give access, or provide their bank accounts or electronic wallets, to unknown or untrusted people.’’
Europol – Eurojust – European Banking Federation (EBF)
To raise awareness of these crime schemes among the public, the joint money muling awareness campaign #DontBeaMule kicked off today. With awareness-raising material available for download in 19 languages, the campaign aims to inform the public about how these criminals operate, how they can protect themselves and what to do if they become a victim.
From today, and until this Friday, international partners from law enforcement, judicial authorities and financial institutions will be supporting this campaign at national level.
#DontBeaMule! Twitter: @Europol @EC3Europol @EBFeu Facebook: @Europol
VIDEO WHAT IS MONEY MULING: https://youtu.be/Yc89fclFgGo
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