Any measure taken at European Union level to regulate the FinTech sector must seek a balance between stimulating this innovative market and preserving the stability of the financial system, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) states in an opinion adopted in mid-July.
“FinTech players should be subject to the same rules as the financial sector, particularly as regards resilience, cyber-security and supervision”, says Petru Sorin Dandea, the rapporteur of the Committee, in a press release. He recommends the same rules and the same prudential supervision for all financial players exposed to the same risks.
The EESC welcomes the action plan of the European Commission, which presented 23 measures in spring aiming to support the rise of this sector, such as a reflection on establishing the European framework for cyber-stress tests (see EUROPE 11977).
On the portability of personal data, the EESC recommends that this option be applied in line with the rules on the 'payments' directive (PSD2) and with the regulation on the protection of personal data (GDPR) that has been in force since the end of May. In particular, the Commission could identify rules specific to businesses offering cloud data hosting services, it considers.
Crowdfunding. The Committee also makes the case for additional proposals to support the expansion of crowdfunding.
“At least during the initial stages of an operation, there should be an even stronger focus on risk aspects associated with crowdfunding operations and markets in order to better identify them or mitigate them where possible”, says Daniel Mareels, the EESC's rapporteur on this matter.
In this area, the coexistence of different national regulatory regimes is a source of concern, in the view of the Committee, which considers that extra rules could be brought into require supervisors to give users more information and introduce accreditation at EU level ('EU label') for service providers.
Finally, it argues that there is a need to do more to fight the potential for money laundering through crowdfunding. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)