FIA welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback to the amendments included in the European Commission’s European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR 3.0) proposals, which seek to further enhance the competitiveness, efficiency and resiliency of financial market infrastructure in the European Union.
FIA supports many elements in the proposals, which will improve the competitiveness and attractiveness of EU CCPs. However, the EMIR 3.0 package also contains proposals that may ultimately negatively impact the competitiveness of EU firms, harm the efficiency and resiliency of the clearing ecosystem, and impact EU investors and pension funds.
Most significantly, FIA is concerned with the proposed Pillar 2 prudential measures and the Commission’s active account proposal, which could have detrimental impacts on EU market participants and create competitive disadvantages for EU banks and clearing members.
FIA remains convinced that mandatory EU active accounts would be detrimental to risk management, operational efficiency and broader EU competitiveness. In particular, FIA disagrees with the proposal to introduce quantitative thresholds as part of the active account requirement.
It is important to ensure that any clearing levels and phase-in timelines chosen will not disadvantage EU firms vis-a-vis their international peers. Moreover, the active account proposal should be adapted to protect EU firms’ competitiveness, for instance by including in the scope only the activities where the choice of where to clear belongs to the EU market participants, which are subject to the EU clearing requirements.
Read FIA’s response in full.
