The European Commission has issued an Action Plan for FinTech.
The Action Plan is part of the Commission’s efforts to build a Capital Markets Union and has three main objectives: to support innovative business models to scale up across the Single Market; to encourage the uptake of new technologies in the financial sector; and to increase cybersecurity and the integrity of the financial system.
The Action Plan sets out 23 steps to enable innovative business models to scale-up, support the uptake of new technologies, increase cyber-security and the integrity of the financial system. This will include the Commission:
- hosting an EU FinTech laboratory from Q2 2018 where European and national authorities will engage with tech providers in a neutral, non-commercial space;
- inviting the European Supervisory Authorities, by Q1 2019, to map current authorising and licensing approaches for innovative FinTech business models;
- reporting on the challenges and opportunities of crypto assets later in 2018 and working on a strategy on distributed ledger technology and blockchain addressing all sectors of the economy;
- consulting publicly on further digitisation of regulated information about companies listed on EU regulated markets in Q2 2018, including the possible implementation of a European Financial Transparency Gateway based on distributed ledger technology;
- running workshops to improve information-sharing when it comes to cyber-security; and
- presenting a blueprint with best practices on regulatory sandboxes, based on guidance from the European Supervisory Authorities.
View FinTech Action Plan: For a more competitive and innovative European financial sector, 8 March 2018
