In its response to the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) public consultation on the first set of Draft EU Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRSs), the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) highlighted the need for consistency between the International Sustainability Standards (ISSB) sustainability disclosures and the EFRAG ESRSs in order to ensure a levelled global playing field.

The European Savings and Retail Banking Group submitted its final response to the Platform for Sustainable Finance (PSF) consultation on its draft report on minimum safeguards (MS). In its response, ESBG highlighted that criteria for the application of external checks should be further defined.

ESBG responded to the EBA consultation on the draft non-performing loans (NPL) transaction data templates, which seek to improve the functioning of secondary markets for NPLs.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) aims to better meet its objective of preventing the misuse of legal arrangements for money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) and therefore conducts a review of its Recommendation 25 (R.25) and the Interpretive Note on their transparency and beneficial ownership (BO).

The European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to launch a targeted consultation aiming at reviewing the State Aid rules for banks in difficulty.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has been established at COP26 with the purpose of developing a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability disclosures for the capital markets. The purpose of the consultation is to develop a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability disclosures designed to meet the information needs of investors in assessing enterprise value.

A European approach to data is essential to ensure competitiveness, avoid fragmentation, benefit from an effect of scale and guard against windfall effects from which certain non-European players could benefit.

ESBG submitted its response to the European Commission (EC)’s targeted consultation on the review of the revised payment services Directive (PSD2) on 15 July. In it, ESBG and its members stated that the core principle of PSD2 – access to data free of charge – did not foster the best outcome and that the PSD2 implementation has been a highly complicated and costly process for the whole market.

ESBG supports the scenario chosen by the EU Commission for its proposal to retain the relevant and still valid elements of the DMFSD by integrating them into a broader directive (the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU which is not currently concerning financial products) and to make some adjustments.