ESMA Responds to European Commission Consultation on The Digital Finance Stragtegy

29 Jun 2020 04:09 PM

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has submitted a response to the European Commission’s (EC) consultation on a new digital finance strategy for the European Union (EU). ESMA welcomes the EC consultation noting that it builds on the 2018 FinTech Action Plan that set a number of deliverables for the ESAs, all of which were completed.

Cooperation around financial innovation at EU level is key to remove fragmentation in the digital financial services market. ESMA believes that certain specific initiatives would support this goal, such as developing Digital Financial Identities, that are usable and recognised throughout the EU, based around the existing ISO 17442 global standard of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). ESMA’s response also outlines several conditions needed for a well-regulated data-driven financial sector, including appropriate skills, data standardisation and data security.

In its response, ESMA focuses on:

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