The Commission has launched two public consultations on digitalisation in the financial sector.
The first consultation seeks views on the suitability of the existing regulatory framework for crypto-assets including “stablecoins”.
The second one asks for feedback on how the existing legislative framework can be improved to ensure that the financial sector can deal with cyber-attacks and other risks as it relies increasingly on information and communications technology.
President Ursula von der Leyen, in her political guidelines, said that it is crucial that Europe grasps “all the potential of the digital age and strengthens its industry and innovation capacity, within safe and ethical boundaries.”
Digitalisation and new technologies are significantly transforming the European financial system and the way it provides financial services to Europe’s businesses and citizens.
These consultations provide a first step in the process of shaping key elements of a broader strategy to promote digital finance in Europe. Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis for an Economy that Works for People, said: “We want to ensure that our financial sector is vibrant and safe. We need to get feedback about how to make digital finance more robust against cyber attacks and other new types of risk.
We also want to be open to financial innovation, so that the EU builds scale and can compete globally in the payments market.
That means we need to develop a common approach on crypto-assets, while addressing risks in a proportionate way. We therefore invite investors, banks, supervisors, consumers and other stakeholders to share their views on how the financial sector could benefit from digitalisation in a safe manner.”
The feedback from the public consultations will feed into the Commission’s impact assessment on possible upcoming initiatives. Respondents are encouraged to provide as much evidence as possible using this link.
The consultation will remain open until 18 March 2020
