BETA


2016/2243(INI) FinTech: influence of technology on the future of the financial sector

Progress: Procedure completed

RoleCommitteeRapporteurShadows
Lead ECON VAN NIEUWENHUIZEN Cora (icon: ALDE ALDE) HAYES Brian (icon: PPE PPE), IVAN Cătălin Sorin (icon: S&D S&D), FOX Ashley (icon: ECR ECR), REIMON Michel (icon: Verts/ALE Verts/ALE), VON STORCH Beatrix (icon: EFDD EFDD), KAPPEL Barbara (icon: ENF ENF)
Committee Opinion EMPL
Committee Opinion IMCO CHARANZOVÁ Dita (icon: ALDE ALDE) Vicky FORD (icon: ECR ECR), Marcus PRETZELL (icon: ENF ENF)
Committee Opinion ITRE
Lead committee dossier:
Legal Basis:
RoP 54

Events

2017/09/26
   EC - Commission response to text adopted in plenary
Documents
2017/05/17
   EP - Results of vote in Parliament
2017/05/17
   EP - Decision by Parliament
Details

The European Parliament adopted by 544 votes to 107, with 14 abstentions, a resolution on FinTech: the influence of technology on the future of the financial sector.

Defining an EU framework for FinTech: Members welcomed the new developments in the area of FinTech, and called on the Commission to draw up a comprehensive FinTech action plan in the framework of its Capital Markets Union (CMU) and Digital Single Market (DSM) strategies. They called on the Commission to deploy a proportionate, cross-sectorial and holistic approach to its work and to act as first mover in order to create a favourable environment for European FinTech hubs and firms to scale up.

The resolution stressed that legislation and supervision in the area of FinTech should be based on three principles:

Same services and same risks: the same rules should apply, regardless of the type of legal entity concerned or its location in the Union; Technology neutrality ; A risk-based approach , taking into account the proportionality of legislative and supervisory actions to risks and materiality of risks.

Members recommended putting in place a controlled environment for experimentation with new technologies and stressed the need for a dialogue with market participants and all other relevant stakeholders, is necessary and can help supervisors and regulators to develop technological expertise. More research projects related to the FinTech should be supported.

Moreover, Members emphasised the importance of regulators and supervisors developing sufficient technical expertise to adequately scrutinise increasingly complex FinTech services. The potential benefits of a single point of contact for market participants was highlighted in this regard.

Members recognised that FinTech companies contribute positively to the development of financial intermediation, but also create new risks related to financial stability.

Parliament urged the regulatory and supervisory authorities to consider how they could obtain the appropriate supervisory information for maintaining financial stability and, where necessary, to impose regulatory constraints on their balance sheets.

Members also called on the relevant authorities to take a proactive approach in trying to understand the barriers to using new FinTech and RegTech solutions in areas of pre- and post- trade processes that are covered by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ( MiFID ), the European Market Infrastructure Regulation ( EMIR ) and the Central Securities Depositories Regulation ( CSDR ) and, where no barriers exist, to clarify the right of actors to use such solutions for the purpose of fulfilling their obligations under those pieces of legislation.

With a view to boosting financial innovation in Europe, Members called on the Commission and the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) to: (i) monitor and avoid overlaps of regulation, new barriers to entry on the market, and national barriers to those services; (i) apply, where applicable, passporting regimes to providers of new financial services offered across the EU.

They also supported the Commission’s efforts to address how the EU can help improve choice, transparency and competition in retail financial services to the benefit of European consumers, and emphasised that this goal should be complementary to the objective of improving the efficiency of the financial system.

Data: Parliament recalled that the collection and analysis of data play a central role for FinTech, and therefore stressed the need for consistent, technology-neutral application of existing data legislation , including the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ), the Revised Payment Service Directive ( PSD2 ), the Electronic Identification and Authentication Services ( eIDAS ) Regulation, the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive ( AMLD4 ) and the Network and Information Security ( NIS ) Directive.

Members emphasised the need for clear rules on data ownership, access and transfer and stressed the need for a common approach to the use of cloud computing across national competent authorities (NCAs).

Cybersecurity : Parliament called on the Commission to make cybersecurity the number one priority in the FinTech action plan, and on the ESAs and the ECB in its banking supervision role to make it a key element of their regulatory and supervisory programmes. It called on the ESAs to regularly review existing operational standards covering ICT risks of financial institutions.

Blockchains : Members underlined the potential of blockchain applications for cash and securities transfer, as well as for facilitating ‘smart contracts’, which open up a wide range of possibilities for both sides of financial contracts, in particular trade finance and business lending arrangements. They are, nevertheless, concerned by the increased use of unpermissioned blockchain applications for criminal activities, tax evasion, tax avoidance and money laundering.

Interoperability : Parliament stressed the importance of interoperability of traditional and new payments solutions in order to achieve an integrated and innovative European payment market. It called on the ESAs, in cooperation with national regulators, to develop technology-neutral standards and licences both for know-your-customer and remote identification techniques.

Financial stability and consumer and investor protection : Members called on:

the Commission to pay specific attention, in designing its FinTech action plan, to the needs of retail consumers and investors and the risks to which they might be vulnerable, in the light of growing expansion of FinTech in services to non-professional clients, for example in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending; regulators and supervisors to monitor the impact of digitisation on the competitive situation across all relevant segments of the financial sector, and to design and deploy tools to prevent or remedy anti-competitive behaviour or distortions of competition.

Financial education and IT skills : Parliament called on the Commission and the ESAs to increase their support for initiatives to improve financial education and stressed that vocational training and information on consumer and investor rights should be easily accessible.

Documents
2017/05/17
   EP - End of procedure in Parliament
2017/05/16
   EP - Debate in Parliament
2017/04/28
   EP - Committee report tabled for plenary
Details

The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs adopted the own-initiative report by Cora VAN NIEUWENHUIZEN (ALDE, NL) on FinTech: the influence of technology on the future of the financial sector.

Defining an EU framework for FinTech: Members welcomed the new developments in the area of FinTech, and called on the Commission to draw up a comprehensive FinTech Action Plan in the framework of its Capital Markets Union (CMU) and Digital Single Market (DSM) strategies. They called on the Commission to deploy a proportionate, cross-sectorial and holistic approach to its work on FinTech and to act as first mover in order to create a favourable environment for European FinTech hubs and firms to scale up.

They stressed legislation and supervision in the area of FinTech should be based on three principles:

Same services and same risks: the same rules should apply, regardless of the type of legal entity concerned or its location in the Union; Technology neutrality ; A risk-based approach , taking into account the proportionality of legislative and supervisory actions to risks and materiality of risks.

Members emphasised the importance of regulators and supervisors developing sufficient technical expertise to adequately scrutinise increasingly complex FinTech services so that they can detect and anticipate specific risks of different technologies and step in immediately and with a clear agenda when it becomes necessary.

They recognised that:

FinTech companies contribute positively to the development of financial intermediation, but also create new risks related to financial stability; RegTech has the potential to improve compliance processes, in particular the quality and timeliness of supervisory information, by making them less complicated and more cost-efficient.

Members called on the relevant authorities to take a proactive approach in trying to understand the barriers to using new FinTech and RegTech solutions in areas of pre- and post- trade processes that are covered by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ( MiFID ), the European Market Infrastructure Regulation ( EMIR ) and the Central Securities Depositories Regulation ( CSDR ) and, where no barriers exist, to clarify the right of actors to use such solutions for the purpose of fulfilling their obligations under those pieces of legislation.

They called on the Commission and the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) to:

monitor and avoid overlaps of regulation, new barriers to entry on the market, and national barriers to those services; to apply, where applicable, passporting regimes to providers of new financial services offered across the EU.

They also supported the Commission’s efforts to address how the EU can help improve choice, transparency and competition in retail financial services to the benefit of European consumers, and emphasised that this goal should be complementary to the objective of improving the efficiency of the financial system.

Data: Members recalled that the collection and analysis of data play a central role for FinTech, and therefore stressed the need for consistent, technology-neutral application of existing data legislation , including the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ), the Revised Payment Service Directive ( PSD2 ), the Electronic Identification and Authentication Services ( eIDAS ) Regulation, the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive ( AMLD4 ) and the Network and Information Security ( NIS ) Directive.

They emphasised the need for clear rules on data ownership, access and transfer and stressed that while the GDPR provides a clear legal framework on personal data more legal certainty is needed regarding other categories of data.

Cybersecurity and ICT risks: Members called on the Commission to make cybersecurity the number one priority in the FinTech Action Plan, and on the ESAs and the ECB in its banking supervision role to make it a key element of their regulatory and supervisory programmes. They called on the Member States to ensure the timely transposition of the directive on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive).

Blockchains: Members underlined the potential of blockchain applications for cash and securities transfer, as well as for facilitating ‘smart contracts’, which open up a wide range of possibilities for both sides of financial contracts, in particular trade finance and business lending arrangements. They are, nevertheless, concerned by the increased use of unpermissioned blockchain applications for criminal activities, tax evasion, tax avoidance and money laundering.

Interoperability: Members stressed the importance of interoperability of traditional and new payments solutions in order to achieve an integrated and innovative European payment market. They asked the ESAs to identify in which cases targeted or risk-based authentication can be an alternative to strong authentication and the Commission to investigate whether the strong authentication processes can also be executed by other entities than banks. They called on the ESAs, in cooperation with national regulators, to develop technology-neutral standards and licences both for know-your-customer and remote identification techniques.

Financial stability and consumer and investor protection: Members called on:

the Commission to pay specific attention, in designing its FinTech action plan, to the needs of retail consumers and investors and the risks to which they might be vulnerable, in the light of growing expansion of FinTech in services to non-professional clients, for example in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending; regulators and supervisors to monitor the impact of digitisation on the competitive situation across all relevant segments of the financial sector, and to design and deploy tools to prevent or remedy anti-competitive behaviour or distortions of competition.

Financial education and IT skills: Members called on the Commission and the ESAs to increase their support for initiatives to improve financial education and stressed that vocational training and information on consumer and investor rights should be easily accessible.

Documents
2017/04/25
   EP - Vote in committee
2017/03/22
   EP - Committee opinion
Documents
2017/03/09
   EP - Amendments tabled in committee
Documents
2017/01/27
   EP - Committee draft report
Documents
2016/10/06
   EP - Committee referral announced in Parliament
2016/09/26
   EP - CHARANZOVÁ Dita (ALDE) appointed as rapporteur in IMCO
2016/06/15
   EP - VAN NIEUWENHUIZEN Cora (ALDE) appointed as rapporteur in ECON

Documents

Activities

Votes

A8-0176/2017 - Cora van Nieuwenhuizen - Vote unique #

2017/05/17 Outcome: +: 544, -: 107, 0: 14
DE PL ES RO GB IT BE FR BG CZ HU AT NL SE PT SK FI HR LT LV DK SI LU EE MT IE CY EL
Total
88
49
47
26
52
64
21
60
17
20
19
18
24
19
21
13
12
11
9
8
10
8
6
5
5
8
5
19
icon: PPE PPE
200

Finland PPE

2

Denmark PPE

For (1)

1

Luxembourg PPE

3

Estonia PPE

For (1)

1

Malta PPE

2

Cyprus PPE

1
icon: S&D S&D
170

Netherlands S&D

3

Croatia S&D

2

Lithuania S&D

1

Latvia S&D

1

Slovenia S&D

For (1)

1

Luxembourg S&D

For (1)

1

Estonia S&D

For (1)

1

Malta S&D

3

Ireland S&D

For (1)

1

Cyprus S&D

2
icon: ECR ECR
64

Romania ECR

For (1)

1

Italy ECR

2

Bulgaria ECR

2

Czechia ECR

2

Netherlands ECR

2
2

Croatia ECR

For (1)

1

Lithuania ECR

1

Latvia ECR

For (1)

1

Denmark ECR

For (1)

1

Greece ECR

For (1)

1
icon: ALDE ALDE
61

Germany ALDE

2

Romania ALDE

3

United Kingdom ALDE

1

Austria ALDE

For (1)

1

Portugal ALDE

1

Croatia ALDE

2

Latvia ALDE

1

Slovenia ALDE

For (1)

1

Luxembourg ALDE

For (1)

1

Estonia ALDE

3
icon: Verts/ALE Verts/ALE
48

United Kingdom Verts/ALE

Abstain (2)

5

Italy Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Belgium Verts/ALE

2

France Verts/ALE

Against (1)

Abstain (1)

6

Hungary Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Austria Verts/ALE

3

Netherlands Verts/ALE

2

Finland Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Croatia Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Lithuania Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Latvia Verts/ALE

1

Denmark Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Slovenia Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Luxembourg Verts/ALE

For (1)

1
icon: NI NI
15

Germany NI

For (1)

1

United Kingdom NI

For (1)

Against (2)

3

France NI

3
3
icon: EFDD EFDD
27

Germany EFDD

Against (1)

1

Poland EFDD

1

Czechia EFDD

Against (1)

1

Sweden EFDD

2

Lithuania EFDD

For (1)

1
icon: ENF ENF
33

Poland ENF

2

United Kingdom ENF

Against (1)

1

Belgium ENF

Against (1)

1

Austria ENF

For (1)

4

Netherlands ENF

3
icon: GUE/NGL GUE/NGL
46

United Kingdom GUE/NGL

Against (1)

1

Italy GUE/NGL

3

France GUE/NGL

Abstain (1)

3

Czechia GUE/NGL

2

Netherlands GUE/NGL

2

Sweden GUE/NGL

Against (1)

1

Finland GUE/NGL

For (1)

1

Denmark GUE/NGL

Against (1)

1

Ireland GUE/NGL

3

Cyprus GUE/NGL

2
AmendmentsDossier
375 2016/2243(INI)
2017/02/10 IMCO 59 amendments...
source: 599.598
2017/03/09 ECON 316 amendments...
source: 601.075

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)

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commission
  • body: EC dg: Budget commissioner: MOSCOVICI Pierre
committees
  • type: Responsible Committee body: EP associated: False committee_full: Economic and Monetary Affairs committee: ECON date: 2016-06-15T00:00:00 rapporteur: name: VAN NIEUWENHUIZEN Cora group: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe abbr: ALDE shadows: name: HAYES Brian group: European People's Party (Christian Democrats) abbr: PPE name: IVAN Cătălin Sorin group: Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats abbr: S&D name: FOX Ashley group: European Conservatives and Reformists abbr: ECR name: MATIAS Marisa group: European United Left - Nordic Green Left abbr: GUE/NGL name: REIMON Michel group: Greens/European Free Alliance abbr: Verts/ALE name: VON STORCH Beatrix group: Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy abbr: EFDD name: KAPPEL Barbara group: Europe of Nations and Freedom abbr: ENF
  • type: Committee Opinion body: EP associated: False committee_full: Employment and Social Affairs committee: EMPL opinion: False
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docs
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  • date: 2017-03-09T00:00:00 docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=COMPARL&mode=XML&language=EN&reference=PE601.075 title: PE601.075 type: Amendments tabled in committee body: EP
  • date: 2017-03-22T00:00:00 docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=COMPARL&mode=XML&language=EN&reference=PE595.754&secondRef=02 title: PE595.754 committee: IMCO type: Committee opinion body: EP
  • date: 2017-09-26T00:00:00 docs: url: /oeil/spdoc.do?i=29531&j=0&l=en title: SP(2017)511 type: Commission response to text adopted in plenary
events
  • date: 2016-10-06T00:00:00 type: Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading body: EP
  • date: 2017-04-25T00:00:00 type: Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading body: EP
  • date: 2017-04-28T00:00:00 type: Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading body: EP docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&mode=XML&reference=A8-2017-0176&language=EN title: A8-0176/2017 summary: The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs adopted the own-initiative report by Cora VAN NIEUWENHUIZEN (ALDE, NL) on FinTech: the influence of technology on the future of the financial sector. Defining an EU framework for FinTech: Members welcomed the new developments in the area of FinTech, and called on the Commission to draw up a comprehensive FinTech Action Plan in the framework of its Capital Markets Union (CMU) and Digital Single Market (DSM) strategies. They called on the Commission to deploy a proportionate, cross-sectorial and holistic approach to its work on FinTech and to act as first mover in order to create a favourable environment for European FinTech hubs and firms to scale up. They stressed legislation and supervision in the area of FinTech should be based on three principles: Same services and same risks: the same rules should apply, regardless of the type of legal entity concerned or its location in the Union; Technology neutrality ; A risk-based approach , taking into account the proportionality of legislative and supervisory actions to risks and materiality of risks. Members emphasised the importance of regulators and supervisors developing sufficient technical expertise to adequately scrutinise increasingly complex FinTech services so that they can detect and anticipate specific risks of different technologies and step in immediately and with a clear agenda when it becomes necessary. They recognised that: FinTech companies contribute positively to the development of financial intermediation, but also create new risks related to financial stability; RegTech has the potential to improve compliance processes, in particular the quality and timeliness of supervisory information, by making them less complicated and more cost-efficient. Members called on the relevant authorities to take a proactive approach in trying to understand the barriers to using new FinTech and RegTech solutions in areas of pre- and post- trade processes that are covered by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ( MiFID ), the European Market Infrastructure Regulation ( EMIR ) and the Central Securities Depositories Regulation ( CSDR ) and, where no barriers exist, to clarify the right of actors to use such solutions for the purpose of fulfilling their obligations under those pieces of legislation. They called on the Commission and the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) to: monitor and avoid overlaps of regulation, new barriers to entry on the market, and national barriers to those services; to apply, where applicable, passporting regimes to providers of new financial services offered across the EU. They also supported the Commission’s efforts to address how the EU can help improve choice, transparency and competition in retail financial services to the benefit of European consumers, and emphasised that this goal should be complementary to the objective of improving the efficiency of the financial system. Data: Members recalled that the collection and analysis of data play a central role for FinTech, and therefore stressed the need for consistent, technology-neutral application of existing data legislation , including the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ), the Revised Payment Service Directive ( PSD2 ), the Electronic Identification and Authentication Services ( eIDAS ) Regulation, the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive ( AMLD4 ) and the Network and Information Security ( NIS ) Directive. They emphasised the need for clear rules on data ownership, access and transfer and stressed that while the GDPR provides a clear legal framework on personal data more legal certainty is needed regarding other categories of data. Cybersecurity and ICT risks: Members called on the Commission to make cybersecurity the number one priority in the FinTech Action Plan, and on the ESAs and the ECB in its banking supervision role to make it a key element of their regulatory and supervisory programmes. They called on the Member States to ensure the timely transposition of the directive on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive). Blockchains: Members underlined the potential of blockchain applications for cash and securities transfer, as well as for facilitating ‘smart contracts’, which open up a wide range of possibilities for both sides of financial contracts, in particular trade finance and business lending arrangements. They are, nevertheless, concerned by the increased use of unpermissioned blockchain applications for criminal activities, tax evasion, tax avoidance and money laundering. Interoperability: Members stressed the importance of interoperability of traditional and new payments solutions in order to achieve an integrated and innovative European payment market. They asked the ESAs to identify in which cases targeted or risk-based authentication can be an alternative to strong authentication and the Commission to investigate whether the strong authentication processes can also be executed by other entities than banks. They called on the ESAs, in cooperation with national regulators, to develop technology-neutral standards and licences both for know-your-customer and remote identification techniques. Financial stability and consumer and investor protection: Members called on: the Commission to pay specific attention, in designing its FinTech action plan, to the needs of retail consumers and investors and the risks to which they might be vulnerable, in the light of growing expansion of FinTech in services to non-professional clients, for example in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending; regulators and supervisors to monitor the impact of digitisation on the competitive situation across all relevant segments of the financial sector, and to design and deploy tools to prevent or remedy anti-competitive behaviour or distortions of competition. Financial education and IT skills: Members called on the Commission and the ESAs to increase their support for initiatives to improve financial education and stressed that vocational training and information on consumer and investor rights should be easily accessible.
  • date: 2017-05-16T00:00:00 type: Debate in Parliament body: EP docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?secondRef=TOC&language=EN&reference=20170516&type=CRE title: Debate in Parliament
  • date: 2017-05-17T00:00:00 type: Results of vote in Parliament body: EP docs: url: https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/sda.do?id=29531&l=en title: Results of vote in Parliament
  • date: 2017-05-17T00:00:00 type: Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading body: EP docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P8-TA-2017-0211 title: T8-0211/2017 summary: The European Parliament adopted by 544 votes to 107, with 14 abstentions, a resolution on FinTech: the influence of technology on the future of the financial sector. Defining an EU framework for FinTech: Members welcomed the new developments in the area of FinTech, and called on the Commission to draw up a comprehensive FinTech action plan in the framework of its Capital Markets Union (CMU) and Digital Single Market (DSM) strategies. They called on the Commission to deploy a proportionate, cross-sectorial and holistic approach to its work and to act as first mover in order to create a favourable environment for European FinTech hubs and firms to scale up. The resolution stressed that legislation and supervision in the area of FinTech should be based on three principles: Same services and same risks: the same rules should apply, regardless of the type of legal entity concerned or its location in the Union; Technology neutrality ; A risk-based approach , taking into account the proportionality of legislative and supervisory actions to risks and materiality of risks. Members recommended putting in place a controlled environment for experimentation with new technologies and stressed the need for a dialogue with market participants and all other relevant stakeholders, is necessary and can help supervisors and regulators to develop technological expertise. More research projects related to the FinTech should be supported. Moreover, Members emphasised the importance of regulators and supervisors developing sufficient technical expertise to adequately scrutinise increasingly complex FinTech services. The potential benefits of a single point of contact for market participants was highlighted in this regard. Members recognised that FinTech companies contribute positively to the development of financial intermediation, but also create new risks related to financial stability. Parliament urged the regulatory and supervisory authorities to consider how they could obtain the appropriate supervisory information for maintaining financial stability and, where necessary, to impose regulatory constraints on their balance sheets. Members also called on the relevant authorities to take a proactive approach in trying to understand the barriers to using new FinTech and RegTech solutions in areas of pre- and post- trade processes that are covered by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ( MiFID ), the European Market Infrastructure Regulation ( EMIR ) and the Central Securities Depositories Regulation ( CSDR ) and, where no barriers exist, to clarify the right of actors to use such solutions for the purpose of fulfilling their obligations under those pieces of legislation. With a view to boosting financial innovation in Europe, Members called on the Commission and the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) to: (i) monitor and avoid overlaps of regulation, new barriers to entry on the market, and national barriers to those services; (i) apply, where applicable, passporting regimes to providers of new financial services offered across the EU. They also supported the Commission’s efforts to address how the EU can help improve choice, transparency and competition in retail financial services to the benefit of European consumers, and emphasised that this goal should be complementary to the objective of improving the efficiency of the financial system. Data: Parliament recalled that the collection and analysis of data play a central role for FinTech, and therefore stressed the need for consistent, technology-neutral application of existing data legislation , including the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ), the Revised Payment Service Directive ( PSD2 ), the Electronic Identification and Authentication Services ( eIDAS ) Regulation, the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive ( AMLD4 ) and the Network and Information Security ( NIS ) Directive. Members emphasised the need for clear rules on data ownership, access and transfer and stressed the need for a common approach to the use of cloud computing across national competent authorities (NCAs). Cybersecurity : Parliament called on the Commission to make cybersecurity the number one priority in the FinTech action plan, and on the ESAs and the ECB in its banking supervision role to make it a key element of their regulatory and supervisory programmes. It called on the ESAs to regularly review existing operational standards covering ICT risks of financial institutions. Blockchains : Members underlined the potential of blockchain applications for cash and securities transfer, as well as for facilitating ‘smart contracts’, which open up a wide range of possibilities for both sides of financial contracts, in particular trade finance and business lending arrangements. They are, nevertheless, concerned by the increased use of unpermissioned blockchain applications for criminal activities, tax evasion, tax avoidance and money laundering. Interoperability : Parliament stressed the importance of interoperability of traditional and new payments solutions in order to achieve an integrated and innovative European payment market. It called on the ESAs, in cooperation with national regulators, to develop technology-neutral standards and licences both for know-your-customer and remote identification techniques. Financial stability and consumer and investor protection : Members called on: the Commission to pay specific attention, in designing its FinTech action plan, to the needs of retail consumers and investors and the risks to which they might be vulnerable, in the light of growing expansion of FinTech in services to non-professional clients, for example in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending; regulators and supervisors to monitor the impact of digitisation on the competitive situation across all relevant segments of the financial sector, and to design and deploy tools to prevent or remedy anti-competitive behaviour or distortions of competition. Financial education and IT skills : Parliament called on the Commission and the ESAs to increase their support for initiatives to improve financial education and stressed that vocational training and information on consumer and investor rights should be easily accessible.
  • date: 2017-05-17T00:00:00 type: End of procedure in Parliament body: EP
procedure
reference
2016/2243(INI)
title
FinTech: influence of technology on the future of the financial sector
subject
type
INI - Own-initiative procedure
subtype
Initiative
legal_basis
Rules of Procedure EP 54
Modified legal basis
Rules of Procedure EP 159
stage_reached
Procedure completed
dossier_of_the_committee
ECON/8/07726