Financial Services – General Policy

Financial Services policy should deliver stable, secure and efficient financial markets and ensure coherence and consistency between the different policy areas, such as banking, insurance, securities and investment funds, financial markets infrastructure, retail financial services and payment systems.

Following the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008, the stabilisation of financial markets became a priority and financial sector reform a crucial instrument to achieve it. Filling in the gaps in financial sector regulation and strengthening the supervision of the financial sector in Europe have been the two main strands of work. To this end, the European Union has recently adopted new rules to transform the European Committees of supervisors into supervisory authorities with real teeth. Work is also currently under way in order to examine the consistency and deterrence of sanctions in the EU, in order to improve confidence in the financial sector.

At global level, the EU collaborates with its international partners by actively taking part in the G20 and other international fora in order to improve global financial supervision and crisis management. In particular, the Commission is a member of the newly created Financial Stability Board (FSB). The Commission has also developed regulatory or other dialogues with the EU’s main trading partners, namely the United States (in the context of the EU-US Financial Market Dialogue) and Japan, but also the emerging financial services markets in China, India, Russia and Brazil.

Regulatory convergence and approximation with the Community acquis in the area of financial services is also promoted in the framework of the negotiations of bilateral and multilateral agreements with Third countries, including the new generation of Deep and Comprehensive FTAs.