- Banks remain committed to financing households and businesses.
- EBF Board urges BCBS to respect level-playing field in global banking.
Board members of the European Banking Federation, bringing together bank sector representatives from 32 countries in Europe, on Friday underlined their commitment to responsibly financing households and businesses in the European economy and called on international regulators and policymakers to respect the balance between economic growth and financial regulation as banks embrace the digital transformation.
The Board took note of the EU Banking Reform package presented earlier this week by the European Commission and underlined that this shows that EU now is close to completing its implementation of the G20 global reform agenda. The package appears to comfort banks with a regulatory framework conducive to growth in the EU.
Addressing the upcoming talks in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), the Board called on the committee to respect the G20 mandate for additional capital requirements, which should not have a significant impact in any region, including Europe. EBF members also invited the committee to respect the global playing field in banking by considering the variety of banking models in Europe.
Says Frédéric Oudéa, President, EBF Board:
“The European project relies on the capacity of our institutions to bring prosperity and security to the Peoples of Europe. While ‘Basel IV’ rules and the future of the European economy might seem like two different and separate issues, the reality is that the revision of the current framework for banks’ capital requirements could have very important consequences for Europe. No agreement is better than an agreement that deeply penalises the European economy.”