Europe’s Capital Markets Marriage Altar

With Brexit and a new central bank chief hogging the EU agenda, the financial services industry has revived the call for capital markets union set out in recent blueprints to strengthen the existing commercial and supervisory foundations and competiveness versus developed and emerging world rivals. An IMF paper notes that regional households and companies overwhelmingly rely on banks, and that relatively small national size may cost an extra 250 basis points for debt. Integration has been a goal since single market launch decades ago with alignment lacking on transparency, regulatory and insolvency practices. The survey shows “no roadblocks” or “grand bargain” need for immediate progress on cross-border private risk sharing to promote growth and absorb economic shocks. Euro area bank assets are 300% and corporate bonds 85% of GDP, but securities are less than 70% in Central Europe and the Baltics. Home bias takes half of equity allocation, and the half trillion euros investment fund industry is the main institutional and retail segment under the UCITS directive, followed by insurers and private pensions.  Hedge and private equity funds are half the US total, and derivatives through London with the associated clearing houses will likely shrink in the near term with Brexit undermining liquidity and trading. Startups are particularly unable to find funding, and the lack of portfolio diversification hurts consumption and income. The IMF polled officials and executives and charted wide variation in offering, accounting and tax treatment. Bankruptcy frameworks are separately tracked with the World Bank’s Doing Business data base across a broad range, and outside the evolving “single rulebook” the new European Securities Authority (ESMA) will enforce and monitor. However its powers are “limited” in terms of mandates and fines, the document remarks.

The 2015 action plan focused on innovation, infrastructure investment, and administrative alignment and was updated in 2017 to enable issuance of common prospectus, securitization and venture capital rules. On prudential oversight the European Parliament approved a risk-based formula this year for firms with assets over Euro 30 billion, and an area-wide personal pension model is under development. Another proposed standard will cover corporate insolvency and a consumer protection one is under consideration. The IMF recommends a central reporting system and data base as with EDGAR in the US, and faster withholding tax refund on-line. Oversight should be “proportional” and apply to critical structures like clearing houses and the largest bank-connected houses. ESMA could use independent board members and forge cooperation pacts with global counterparts in its initial stages, and debt enforcement standards are an immediate priority in view of big disparities. Capital market and banking unions should be in “healthy competition” as Europe moves away from traditional relationship-driven sourcing. The push came amid a mixed MSCI Index showing from members through August, with Greece the only positive core constituent on a 20% jump, while the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland fell 5-10%. On the frontier Romania was up 20% and Estonia off 5%, as the Baltics grapples with pervasive money-laundering scandals carrying financial institution penalties and demanding future integrity and solidarity on the issue