Talks on digital financial services

Today saw the start of a series of Virtual Talks on the three central priorities of the ECOFIN Council for this half-year, organised by the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Entitled “Digitalisation in Financial Services: a new landscape with new players and new objectives”, this Friday's conference was chaired by the Portuguese Secretary of State for Finance, João Nuno Mendes.

In his opening speech, the Secretary of State said that this cycle of three virtual talks will provide inputs for the High-Level Conference on Recovery (“Recovery Summit”) to be held in Lisbon next June.

In his speech, John Berrigan, who heads the European Commission's Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets, referred to the challenges the digitalisation of financial services poses for the European Union, also giving a status report on the proposals presented by the European Commission on crypto-assets and digital transactions.

Leonardo Gambacorta, Head of Innovation & Digital Economy at the Bank for International Settlements, was another of the speakers at this talk. In his address, he explained that there are now new compromise solutions between public policy goals in terms of financial stability and market integrity, as well as data privacy and consumer protection, but he also warned of the need for more coordination among the authorities in each country, as well as internationally, when it comes to the rules and regulations for the sector.

The meeting was moderated by Afonso Eça, Assistant Professor at Nova SBE.