The European Fund and Asset Management Association has welcomed the European Parliament’s vote yesterday in plenary session on the reform of the EU framework for supervision of the financial system.
It represents a major step towards a more effective single market for financial services in the EU and also provides adequate tools to better protect investors and financial market participants against systemic risks.
Efama says it fully embraces the creation of three strong European supervisory authorities with increased competences, and welcomes, in particular, the power given to those authorities to elaborate binding technical standards and to develop a single EU rule book.
It believes this will help to prevent gold-plating and regulatory arbitrage and thus, reduce legal uncertainties and decrease significantly the huge compliance costs that our members are currently facing when they operate on the securities markets of all 27 EU member states.
Efama is calling for the investment management industry, as a major representative of the buy-side, to be adequately represented in the consultative stakeholder groups to be established within the European Securities and Markets Authority, but also within the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, to reflect the increasingly important role of the industry in the provision of long-term savings and pension solutions.
Peter De Proft, director general of Efama, says: “As managers of Ucits, probably the best example to date of a truly pan-European retail financial product, our members have a very strong interest in an harmonized European supervisory framework with powerful authorities liaising closely with national authorities.
“We therefore strongly welcome the reform of the European Supervisory Architecture, which represents a major step towards an effective single market.
“We look forward to establishing as constructive a relationship with ESMA as we have established with the Committee of European Securities Regulators. We encourage ESMA to build on CESR’s good practices of open and transparent consultation of stakeholders and would welcome the creation of a consultative panel specifically dedicated to asset management related matters.”
