Today the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) appointed their new Securities Markets Stakeholders Group members. Their announcement follows that of the other European Supervisory Authorities: the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA).
EuroFinUse now counts with 3 representatives in the two European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority’s (EIOPA) stakeholder groups (out of a total of 4 end-user representatives), 3 out of 5 user representatives in the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) Banking Stakeholder Group and 4 out of 6 user representatives in the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) CFSC CWG stakeholder group. All these groups count a total of 30 members representing different sectors.
At first glance the new composition of the stakeholder groups across all three ESAs seems indeed to better reflect the need for a more balanced representation of end-users. However, members with economic ties to the industry still seem to account for more than 50% of the membership of all 3 ESAs combined.
Whereas this constitutes a slight improvement, there’s still an urgent need for a new regulatory regime that puts financial users at the heart of market reform. Insofar as markets exist to serve the interests of users and society, and not the other way around, the focus must be on involving end-users and consumers in the legislative and regulation processes.
EuroFinUse is of the opinion that, overall, the new European system of financial supervision (ESFS) and the new European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) - while undertaking some very critical work in relation to financial stability and micro-prudential regulation - has so far made very little difference to financial users.
The ESAs have been concentrating most of their efforts on financial stability rather than prioritising the protection of consumers and making markets works for them. To this day the regulatory bodies have not achieved the legally required balance between industry and retail user representation in the relevant “Stakeholder Groups”.
Please read ESMA press release here.