“We strongly support moves towards enhanced supervisory convergence” – Director General, Financial Conduct Derville Rowland

• In a post Brexit Europe we need to increase consumer and investor confidence to make informed investment decisions
• Need to further simplify and improve disclosure requirements  to support better informed consumer decisions
• Need to empower consumers to make an informed choice to buy sustainable products

Speaking at the joint ESAs Consumer Protection Day 2019 hosted by the Central Bank of Ireland at the Mansion House in Dublin, Derville Rowland, Director General, Financial Conduct, set out the Central Bank’s strong support for enhanced supervisory convergence across Europe.

She said: “We have seen some progress on Capital Markets Union while the development of Banking Union also represented an important step in the institutional architecture of the EU.  But in a post Brexit Europe we need to do more and to continue to increase consumer and investor confidence to make informed investment decisions.  We should build on the momentum to offer consumers and investors high quality options and suitable choices to help them to provide for themselves and their families, both now and in to the future.”

“Recognising the progress made but accepting more work is required, there is a real need to further simplify and improve the PRIIPS disclosures to support better informed consumer decisions.’’

“In relation to environmentally sustainable finance, our work in the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) grapples with these [complex] issues by completing the taxonomy and disclosure requirements for investors. In this way, we work to support making European sustainable finance a reality. For if consumers are empowered to make an informed choice to buy sustainable products, we will have taken another important step on the road to tackling the urgent problem of climate change.”

“The Central Bank of Ireland strongly supports moves towards enhanced supervisory convergence However, as regulators we should be clear that this combination of increasing mandate, greater complexity and a degree of uncertainty as to how markets are going to evolve, means we have to adopt an increasingly rigorous, risk-based approach to where we devote our finite resources."