Speakers
Session overview
Objectives
Europe's banking sector combines a wide diversity of business models that contribute to financial stability, competition and the financing of the real economy, but preserving this diversity is becoming more challenging as supervisory frameworks, digital transformation and scale requirements evolve.
The session will first examine how EU and national supervisory frameworks can better reflect the diversity of banking models, particularly cooperative and mutualist banks. Participants will discuss how supervisory practices can move beyond the principle of proportionality by adapting benchmarks, governance expectations, reporting requirements and supervisory assessments while preserving a level playing field.
The session will then explore whether digitalisation will preserve or erode banking diversity in Europe. The discussion will assess how AI, open finance, cloud computing, cyber-security and digital banking may either reinforce market concentration or strengthen proximity banking, local lending and financial inclusion, including through the mutualisation of digital capabilities within cooperative networks.
Finally, the session will consider the policy priorities needed to maintain a diverse and competitive European banking sector. It will examine the interaction between prudential supervision, competition policy and digital regulation, and identify the reforms that would have the greatest impact, including supervisory practices, regulatory simplification, digital investment and progress towards the Banking Union.
Points of discussion
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In what ways can day-to-day supervision more accurately reflect the ownership, governance, and capital formation features of cooperative and mutualist banks, while ensuring that differentiation remains risk-based and does not amount to preferential treatment?
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In order to compete with neobanks, fintechs and big-tech platforms, how can cooperative, mutualist and regional banks achieve the digital scale needed, while ensuring that digitalisation strengthens banking diversity rather than accelerating business-model convergence?