The ESMA-EBA published their report on the administration and management of Euribor on Friday. Among the outline of the now familiar shortcomings of such benchmarks were tables demonstrating basic operational failures, e.g. fat finger errors by panel banks… Read more
There are already guidelines in Europe for setting compensation in the financial sector so as not to encourage risk-taking that threatens the stability of the system as a whole. Now it’s time to discuss how pay packets can be structured in a way that doesn’t reward ripping clients’ faces off.
Frankly, we think the easiest way to sort this out is to follow a cue from the online gaming community, but more on that later. Read more
In a coordinated move after Wednesday evening’s close, the European Securities and Markets Authority announced an extension of the short selling bans in place for selected financial stocks in France, Italy, and Spain. The bans started on August 12th.
FT Alphaville can imagine that this may cause a certain amount of quick-and-decisive-action envy among European politicians. If only everything were so easy to solve and uniformly implemented. (Sigh) Read more
France, Italy, Spain and Belgium have banned all short selling of financial stocks for 15 days in response to sharp share price falls this week, the FT reports, with the bans to take effect on Friday morning. But other main markets, including the US and the UK, have said they have no plans to follow suit. The announcement represents a partial victory for the new European Union market regulator, Esma, which has sought to avoid a repeat of the unco-ordinated actions that swept around the world after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. Greece and Turkey had already imposed restrictions on short selling earlier this week. FT Alphaville looks at the details released so far of the measures, and how they vary between countries. Read more
After a day of speculation and disagreement ESMA on Thursday evening announced “harmonised regulatory action” to ban short-selling of financials in Spain, France, Belgium and Italy. As signs of weakness go, it’s flashing with bright lights and sounding pretty discordant.
“Harmonised” is pure Panglossian Brussilian. Spain seems to have banned short-selling in all products related to financials, whereas France has limited it to equities. We’ll see how effective that is but previous efforts don’t bode well for the European regulators. Belgian and Italian details hadn’t been released at pixel time. Read more
A top UK-based regulator has been nominated to run the new pan-European watchdog that will oversee financial and securities markets, in a move that could help assuage London’s fears of growing continental influence over trading activities, reports the FT. Verena Ross, a German national but a director at the UK’s Financial Services Authority, has been nominated as executive director – or chief executive – of the new, Paris-based European Securities and Markets Authority, one of the three new EU supervisory bodies set up in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. She was chosen from four shortlisted candidates by the supervisory board of ESMA, made up of regulators from all 27 EU member states. Read more
