The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has published a draft report on the European Commission’s Green Paper on retail financial services (the Green Paper).
The draft report contains a motion for a European Parliament resolution which generally welcomes the Green Paper and the “vivid” and “productive debate” that it has generated so far.
The draft report also contains an explanatory statement by rapporteur Olle Ludvigsson MEP. In his statement Mr Ludvigsson states that the Commission has “done the right thing” and that the Green Paper has been presented at the “right time”. However, he also notes that there are some major challenges that have to be dealt with in bringing the retail financial services agenda forward and these include:
- building a stronger EU level capacity for data collection and analysis;
- creating and maintaining a level playing field. Any new legislative initiative based on the Green Paper will have to be as technology and business model neutral as feasible;
- highlighting the challenge of making certain that there are no unnecessary or unfair differences between euro and non-euro Member States; and
- ensuring financial inclusion. The new Payment Accounts Directive, to be fully implemented this autumn, will give every consumer a right to a basic bank account. Mr Ludvigsson states that while this is a bold step in the right direction, it is far from enough and that more needs to be done.
View ECON draft report on the Green Paper on retail financial services, 25 May 2016
