Competitiveness
Overregulation causes high costs. This is one of the reasons why the European asset management industry is falling further and further behind the global competition. Therefore, deregulation and reduction of bureaucracy are necessary at both national and EU level.
BVI has been calling for more principle-based rules for years. This is because the large number of detailed rules, which often bring no added value for investors and are sometimes even contradictory, cause disproportionately high costs. For example, there is no money for IT investments. This is one of the reasons why the European asset management industry is falling further and further behind the global competition. The inadequate impact assessment of new laws on companies makes the situation worse. The consequences only become apparent after implementation in practice. Experimental regulation at the expense of the industry must be stopped.
The EU also needs to be bold and deregulate. Although EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a standard competition check for EU legislation at the end of 2022, no action has been taken since then. On the contrary, Brussels is pushing ahead with new regulations that do more harm than good. These include the open finance project FiDA. The EU will not be able to keep tech giants from third countries at bay. Attempting to do so could provoke retaliatory measures from the US. The sword of Damocles is called Section 899.
We also call on the EU to abandon the idea of centralising financial supervision under the umbrella of ESMA. Because national supervisory authorities will not disappear, there is a risk of duplicate structures, multiple reporting and hundreds of new officials at ESMA in Paris. Read more here.
