February 2014

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its third annual report on credit rating agencies (CRAs) in the EU.

The annual report has four substantive chapters covering:

  • an overview of the EU CRA industry;
  • ESMA’s commitments in its 2012 annual report on CRAs and 2013 deliverables;
  • ESMA’s CRA supervision work plan for 2014 and beyond; and
  • ESMA’s CRA related policy work plan for 2014 and beyond.

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has published a preliminary report relating to an EU single market for personal pensions along with a covering letter and a summary of comments. The documents highlight such issues as tax, social law and harmonisation of contract law to be most significant hurdles to developing a single market for personal pensions. However, in a covering letter to the report, EIOPA explains that going forward it supports both:

  • a Directive to introduce common EU consumer protection rules for all existing and future personal pensions; and
  • a Regulation addressing tax and possibly other differences between Member States. The proposed Regulation should enable transferability of accumulated capital and highly standardised product rules ensuring a high level of protection for person pension holders.

The PRA has issued a timetable of its activity, to early May 2014 on the Solvency II Directive.

The plan is intended to serve as a useful tool to help firms prepare for the changes that Solvency II will make to their business. In particular, the plan highlights that the PRA intends to:

  • produce a Consultation Paper on ‘Solvency II: the calculation of technical provisions and the use of internal models’ for general insurance firms in mid-March 2014. The consultation will close in mid-April 2014 and the PRA will issue a supervisory statement by the end of April 2014; and
  • confirm the plans for the PRA data collection exercises in 2014 and 2015 by the end of March 2014.

The European Securities and Markets Authority has published draft implementing technical standards to determine the format of notification under:

  • article 16 of the Regulation on European Venture Capital Funds. Article 16 concerns one regulator notifying another about the registration of a manager of a qualifying venture capital fund; and
  • article 17 of the Regulation on European Social Entrepreneurship Funds (EuSEF). Article 17 also concerns one regulator notifying another about the registration of a manager of a qualifying EuSEF.

The European Parliament’s (EP) Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) has published two press releases which announce that it has voted on a report containing amendments to the proposed:

  • Directive primarily repealing and replacing the Payments Services Directive; and
  • Regulation on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published two compliance tables that set out a list of Member State authorities that comply or intend to comply with its guidelines on certain aspects of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive’s:

  • compliance function requirements; and
  • suitability requirements.

In its supervisory approach documents that were published last year, the PRA stated that it would begin to streamline the Handbook that it had inherited from the FSA in order to align its content closer to its statutory objectives and the new Threshold Conditions.

In January, the PRA issued the first in a planned series of consultations that are aimed at reshaping the Handbook and creating a more concise Rulebook. Consultation Paper 2/14: The PRA Rulebook presented proposals that are designed to change the Principles for Businesses, FINMAR and certain chapters of SUP for PRA authorised firms.