The European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA together the “ESAs”) will be giving high priority to consumer protection and risk assessment in 2013, according to its 2013 Work Programme released on 16 January 2013. The programme also indicates that it will continue to pursue regulatory work initiated in 2012 in the areas of Financial Conglomerates, European Market Infrastructure Regulation, Anti-Money Laundering and Credit Ratings.
Consumer Protection
The ESA has indicated that work on Consumer Protections will focus on 3 work streams:
- Cross-selling and complaints handling – assessment will be made whether principles developed for complaints handling in the insurance sector can be adapted to the securities and banking sector.
- Product Oversight and Governance – the development of a set of high-level principles for the product approval process will be considered.
- Retail Products – this work sub-group will contribute to the development of Level 2 measures for the proposed regulation on key information documents (“KID”) for packaged retail investment products (“PRIPS”).
Risk Assessment
The ESA has indicated that work on Risk Assessment will focus on working towards closer cooperation on evaluating financial market developments of mutual concern such as shadow banking, bank funding, credit derivatives, asset encumbrance, financial innovation and financial market integration.
