On 3 March 2020, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a speech delivered by its chairperson, José Manuel Campa, at the 4^th Annual Conference on ‘FinTech and Digital Innovation: Delivering for the Future’.

In his speech, Mr Campa focuses on the progress the EBA has made towards removing obstacles to the application of innovative technologies in the banking and payments sectors, namely by working to achieve technological neutrality in its regulatory and supervisory approaches and its strategy going forward.

During his speech, Mr Campa states that the EBA has identified areas where additional regulation is needed including strengthening and harmonising the current legislative framework for third party service providers.  At the micro level, by strengthening the toolkit to enable supervisors to supervise more effectively. At the macro level, by introducing a new oversight framework that sets higher standards related to security and data protection (e.g. obligatory cyber security certification). The scope of the oversight should aim at monitoring concentration risk, financial stability risks and ensuring cooperation with relevant authorities.

In terms of the year ahead, Mr Campa mentions that the EBA will be undertaking a major new thematic piece focussing on some of the structural changes it is starting to observe in the financial sector – specifically the trend towards the reaggregation of products and services on platforms, and emerging new forms of interconnection in the financial sector.