The Commission's action plan on retail financial services does not entirely respond to the concerns raised by the European Parliament. This is the conclusion reached by the draft own-initiative report by Olle Ludvigsson (S&D, Sweden), to be discussed by the committee on economic and monetary affairs on Wednesday 30 August.
Readers may recall that the Commission's action plan, which was presented on 23 March this year (see EUROPE 11752), aims to reduce the legal and regulatory obstacles to companies providing retail financial services abroad, whilst guaranteeing consumer protection.
Although the report acknowledges that the action plan constitutes a dynamic approach to drafting the policies needed in the field of financial services, it also flags up its shortcomings and areas in which the concerns voiced by the European Parliament in its report on the Green Paper on retail financial services of December 2015 (see EUROPE 11450) have gone unanswered by the Commission.
The report also laments the absence of any measures to tackle the practice of 'dynamic currency conversion'. “No coherent solution is presented regarding the confusing practices which consumers are facing when making ATM withdrawals involving currency conversion, including in practice for the consumer to understand and control the situation fully”, the document notes.
Nor does the action plan properly address questions of currency conversion related to payments on the digital market, geo-blocking and the portability of retail financial services, for instance on the credit card market.
In this draft report, the MEPs once again call upon the Commission - as they did back in October 2016 (see EUROPE 11645) - to present a global action plan for financial technologies, a specific action plan for sustainable finance and investment and a comparison portal for European retail products.
“Building a strong and vibrant single market in retail financial services is a considerable project definitively worthwhile pursuing. At best, this is an area where the European project can make a real difference in people's lives”, the document concludes. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)