Activities of Michel REIMON related to 2016/2243(INI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on FinTech: the influence of technology on the future of the financial sector PDF (372 KB) DOC (85 KB)
Amendments (34)
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas FinTech developments can contribute to the development of the CMU and to enhance the integration of capital markets in the Eurozone and should contribute to the competitiveness of the European financial system and economy, without hampering financial stability and while maintaining the highest possible level of consumer protection;
Amendment 43 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas FinTech can lead to considerable benefits, such as strengthening of competition, faster, cheaper, more transparent and better financial services for consumers and businesses, among others through tackling remuneration structures in financial service distribution which are prone to conflicts of interests and through faster settlement and opening up many new business opportunities for European entrepreneurs;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas FinTech solutions can increase access to capital, in particular for SMEs, through cross-border financial services, alternative lending and investment channels such as crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending; whereas the current EU consumer protection framework does not address Fintech innovations appropriately and likewise does not cover crowdfunding and peer-to- peer lending
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas FinTech can serve as an effective tool for financial inclusion, especially through reducing transaction costs for consumers in developing countries in areas such as financial transfers, by opening up tailor-made financial services to those who could not access them before;
Amendment 97 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Calls on the Commission to draw up a FinTech Action Plan, which should boost its Capital Markets Union (CMU) and Digital Single Market (DSM) strategies and aim at a competitive financial system, financial stability that is stable and geared towards providing long term benefits to the real economy with a high level of and consumer and investor protection;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Stresses that legislation in the financial domain should be proportionate, frequently revised and in accordance with the ‘Innovation Principle’, so that potential effects on innovation will be part by encouraging developments that are not merely novel but also provide 'significant economic and societal benefits'1a; __________________ 1aBased ofn the impact assessment;Commissions explanation https://ec.europa.eu/epsc/publications/stra tegic-notes/towards-innovation-principle- endorsed-better-regulation_en#h-1
Amendment 122 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – introductory part
Paragraph 4 – introductory part
4. Stresses that, with a view to ensuring a level playing field, legislation and supervision in the area of FinTech should be based on the following principles being applied in a harmonised framework equally applied across the EU:
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – point a
Paragraph 4 – point a
a. Same services and risk: same rules, regardless of the type of legal entity concerned; or domiciliation
Amendment 129 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – point b
Paragraph 4 – point b
b. Technology neutrality in all levels of legislation while not being blind to specific risks and benefits of different technological approaches ;
Amendment 132 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – point c
Paragraph 4 – point c
c. Risk-based approach, taking into account proportionality and materiality of risks relative to economic and societal benefits;
Amendment 136 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Recommends that the competent authorities allow controlled experimentation with new technologies both for new entrants and existing market participants, both for new entrants and existing market participants, with new technologies that the authorities deem to have a high potential benefit to consumers; such experimentation could take the form of a light legislative framework in return for limiting the total volume of activities and restricting the initial customer base to individuals well appraised of potential risks and capable of absorbing them; highlights that a pro- active dialogue with market participants can help supervisors and regulators to develop technological expertise; and design the framework for experimentation;
Amendment 150 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Highlights that some central banks are already experimenting with virtualdistributed fiat currencies as well as other new technologies; encourages the relevant authorities in Europe to experiment as welllore the potential benefits, as well as risks, in order to keep up with market developments; recommends that the European Central Bank conduct experiments with a ‘virtualevaluate the potential for a distributed ledger based version of the euro’;
Amendment 159 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Notes that some implementations of DLT technology such as the bitcoin blockchain have extremely energy intensive computational requirements and that, therefore, research should be encouraged to find ways of mining and verification that are energy efficient, especially for large scale uses;
Amendment 170 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Stresses that RegTech has the potential to both improve and alleviate compliancethe quality and timeliness of supervisory information as well as reduce the burden of producing and processesing it; calls on the relevant authorities to clarify the legal conditions under which the outsourcing by the entities they supervise of compliance activities to third parties is allowed; recommends starting to experiment where there is no legacy of compliance yet while ensuring that ultimate liability for the conformity of the relevant information with the law remains with those entities; recommends starting to experiment yet with new RegTech in areas where the entry in force of new requirements is sufficiently far in the future, for example with the Central Securities Depository Regulation;
Amendment 175 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Recalls that innovative financial services should bcan be made available throughout the EU; calls on the Commission and Member States to apply, where applicable, passporting regimes, where there are economic and societal benefits for new financial services offered across the Union;
Amendment 183 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)
Paragraph 9 a (new)
9a. Notes that, in addition to RegTech for interaction with supervisory public authorities, efficiency of tracking ultimate beneficial ownership of financial assets, collection of taxes related to financial activities and the prevention of tax fraud can be greatly improved through FinTech for public administration purposes;
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 b (new)
Paragraph 9 b (new)
9b. Calls on the Commission to investigate to what extent FinTech can help providing consumers with better quality financial advice and whether the fragmented EU regulatory framework dealing with advice is sufficient to accommodate this;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 b (new)
Paragraph 9 b (new)
9b. Emphasizes the urgent need for supervisory convergence of conduct-of- business supervision to ensure consistent application of the EU legislation and create a common culture framework of financial consumer protection across Member States; stresses that supervisory convergence is absolutely crucial in the light of the cross-border potential of FinTech companies.
Amendment 193 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 c (new)
Paragraph 9 c (new)
9c. Notes that diversity and competition among market participants are critical factors contributing to financial stability. Calls on 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 competitive distortions.
Amendment 195 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Stresses 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 eIDAS Regulation, the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD4) and the Network and Information Systemsecurity (NIS) Directive; stresses that, in order to scale up innovative finance in Europe, a free flow of data within the Union is needed; and welcomes the Commission consultation on the "data economy" which should provide evidence about the existence or non-existence of barriers for the free flow of data;
Amendment 203 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Calls on the Commission to investigate the potential negative effects of the use of big data, behavioural tracking technologies, and the increasing granular segmentation on solidarity, and risk pooling and insurance coverage in the insurance sector
Amendment 209 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Notes that there are no clear, comprehensive European guidelinrules for outsourcing data to the cloud with regard to the financial sector; stresses the need for the development of such guidelinrules;
Amendment 219 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Acknowledges the increasing combination of personal data and algorithms in order to provide services such as robo-advice; emphasises the efficiency potential of robo-advice and the positive effects on financial inclusiveness; stresses that errors or biases in algorithms and in the data used to train them can cause systemic risk and harm consumers; asks the Commission and the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) to take these risks into account and assess the liability aspects of data use;
Amendment 222 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Stresses that there should be clarity in EU law as to which personal data sources may or may not be used by FinTech applications; Stresses that, as a general principle, specific, freely given and informed customer consent must be required for the use of any data source; reminds that under the GDPR customers must have the right to get access to all data of personal relevance that is used by a FinTech application on demand, and that they have a right to be informed about profiling and automated decision- making, including meaningful information about the logic involved
Amendment 228 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 b (new)
Paragraph 12 b (new)
12b. Deplores the increasing use of so called "dynamic pricing" algorithms to maximise the price paid by consumers which may be based on assessments of the urgency of their purchase, their awareness of competing offers or other aspects of market awareness and other strategies that harm the consumers economic interests in contravention of the principles enshrined in EU legislation for investment advice;
Amendment 230 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 c (new)
Paragraph 12 c (new)
12c. Is concerned that the use of increasingly personalised offers based on high granularity customer information can be used decrease the comparability of financial services to the detriment of effective competition and recent legislative initiatives to improve comparability across sectors;
Amendment 231 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 3
Subheading 3
Amendment 238 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Emphasises the need for end-to-end security across the whole financial services value chain; points to the large and diverse risks posed by cyber-attacks against information systems, targeting our financial markets infrastructure, currencies and data; calls on the Commission to make cyber security the number one priority in the FinTech Action Plan;
Amendment 242 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Calls on the ESAs to regularly review operational standards covering ICT risks of financial institutions; calls furthermore, owing to the varying level of protection in the cybernetwork and information security strategies of Member States, for ESA guidelines on the supervision of these risks;
Amendment 252 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Is concerned by the increased use of unpermissioned blockchain applications, in particular Bitcoin, for criminal activities, tax evasion, tax avoidance and money laundering; invites the Commission to organise an annual multi-stakeholder conference on this subject;calls on the Commission to provide a report, which assesses these problems and contributes to approaches to tackle them, also invites the Commission to organise an annual multi-stakeholder conference on this subject; emphasizes the high energy consumption of blockchain applications and highlights that therefore more energy efficient solutions are needed,
Amendment 261 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Flags the need for better education and awareness about cybernetwork and information security risks both for citizens and businesses; reminds that the main responsibility lies with the manufacturers of hardware and software, who need stronger incentives such as product liability rules in order to increase the security and resilience of FinTech products;
Amendment 266 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Insists that the relevant public authorities must have a legal right, suitably framed and respecting commercial sensitivities, to inspect the code behind FinTech applications where this can help to ensure compliance with legislation as is currently conferred on them in MiFID in relation to trading algorithms;
Amendment 296 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21a. Calls on the ESAs to especially monitor tech giants' - such as Amazon, Alibaba, Google, Facebook or Apple - expansion into financial services - and if they are likely to generate distortive effects offering complementary financial services;
Amendment 310 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Underlines the need for increased digital skills in society as a whole; calls on the Commission to present best practices in the context of its Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition; stresses that consumers should be able to rely on, informed, secure and user-friendly technologies and services;