European Central Bank to Propose Ways to Streamline Regulations

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, told lawmakers Wednesday (Dec. 3) in Brussels that there are about 15 areas in which a task force of the central bank will recommend simplifications, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

The recommendations will follow the task force’s recently concluded review of regulatory rules for Europe’s financial system and will be revealed within days, according to the report.

The task force is made up of officials from central banks in the region and was formed to reduce the regulatory burden on banks, the report said.

The rules considered by the task force include those regarding capital buffers that must be held by banks, per the report. Currently, these are more complex than those in other regions, the report said.

European officials have been working to streamline regulations in response to similar efforts in the U.S. and the U.K., per the report.

It was reported in April that the European Central Bank had created the task force to simplify the region’s banking rules and that the recommendations of the task force would need to be considered by lawmakers.

Earlier this year, the central bank governors from Germany, France, Italy and Spain wrote a letter to a European commissioner and called for the simplification of “unduly complex” European banking rules.

“A comprehensive analysis of the implications of all the standards produced in Europe should be carried out … to ensure that they do not cumulatively add unintended layers of rules and expectations,” the governors wrote in the letter.

In the U.S., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced in October new guidance and proposed rulemakings, saying it aims to reduce “regulatory burden” for community banks and promote economic growth.

In the U.K., the Financial Conduct Authority said in March that it planned to retire more than 100 pages of outdated guidance, withdraw hundreds of supervisory publications and take other steps to make it easier for consumer finance, investment and mortgage firms to navigate regulations.