SO WHO’S IN CHARGE OF ENFORCING ALL THESE NEW RULES?
• European Securites and Markets Authority (ESMA): Europe’s new super-regulator, in charge of the oversight of the region’s securities industry. ESMA can overrule member states if it thinks national regulators are not taking sufficient measures to tackle potential threats to investors. Its executive director Verena Ross is the only senior member of staff at any of the new agencies recruited from a UK regulator.
• European Banking Authority (EBA): The UK-based arm of the EU’s new regulatory bodies, headed by Andrea Enria (pictured), will monitor capital levels across the European Economic Area’s banking system, and conducting stress tests.
• European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority: Will look specifically at the insurance and pension sector, assessing issues such as whether to extend new solvency regulations for insurers to pension funds too.
• UK changes: abolition of the FSA and elevation of the Bank
The UK is undergoing its own regulatory overhaul. The reform will make the Bank of England a new super-regulator with macro-prudential powers to, for example, alter capital requirements depending upon where in its cycle it deems the economy to be. The Bank will gain a new committee parallel to the Monetary Policy Committee known as the Financial Policy Committee, which will set macro rules. The Financial Services Authority will be split into two bodies, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), headed by Hector Sants, and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The PRA will apply the FPC’s macro rules to individual firms while the FCA will supervise firms with regard to consumer protection and enforcement. However, all of these bodies will be subject to EU regulations and authorities.