According to a document seen by Euronews, France, Italy and Spain have proposed new rules aimed at facilitating cross-border banking operations and eliminating bureaucracy across the bloc.
The three countries submitted their proposals as input to the European Commission ’, which is expected to publish a report on the competitiveness of the banking sector on 15 July’.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made competitiveness one of the main issues on the EU agenda. As part of this effort, the Commission is planning a reform of the European banking sector with a proposed law expected in 2027’.
Despite a decade of progress under the Banking Association, the European banking market remains structurally fragmented along “ national borders, the document notes, suggesting that this limits the industry's ability to better serve businesses and households.
The three countries quote the European Central Bank, ’'s estimate that the absence of cross-border liquidity exemptions restricts the transferability of high-quality liquid assets within the Banking Union of approximately €230 billion.
In the document, “This undermines competitiveness, increases compliance costs, limits access to products and services, and undermines the scale and efficiency gains European banks need to support strategic EU priorities.”
To solve the problem, it is proposed to create a new, voluntary and temporary regime with important cross-border activities for EU banking groups.
This new voluntary, interim regime for “AB banking groups will complement the simplification proposals aimed at achieving better regulatory consistency and reducing regulatory burden and compliance costs, especially by improving the predictability and availability of capital and liquidity buffers.”
Luca Bertuzzi contributed to the journalism.
