Press releases
Restoring banking competitiveness to increase the EU’s financing capacity
The French Banking Federation (FBF) has published its response to the consultation on the competitiveness of the European banking sector conducted by the European Commission. The regulatory momentum of recent years has led to an accumulation of prudential, accounting, digital and operational rules, whose combined effects are gradually reducing banks’ ability to deploy capital in support of economic financing. The European Commission’s report is expected to present targeted adjustments in the form of legislative proposals under an accelerated procedure. The FBF welcomes the fact that policymakers are addressing the issue of banking competitiveness, which lies at the heart of Europe’s overall competitiveness and sovereignty.
The proposals put forward by the FBF, in line with those of the European Banking Federation, aim to stabilise and streamline the prudential framework, eliminate certain EU gold-plating measures, better calibrate requirements applicable to low-risk financing, revitalise securitisation, and ensure greater consistency in digital regulations. They are accompanied by a recommendation to include a secondary objective of competitiveness and growth in the mandates of European authorities, in line with practices observed in the United Kingdom.
Indeed, French and European banks are now facing an unprecedented accumulation of standards issued by different authorities that do not share a holistic view of the regulatory framework they have put in place. This is why the FBF has conducted a comprehensive review of the requirements imposed on French banks—sometimes duplicative—and has quantified, for each proposed measure, the impact on financing capacity that could be freed up for economic actors.
While the United States recently announced an adaptation of the Basel implementation that should result in a reduction of capital requirements of at least 5%, the European Union has adopted an approach that would increase them by around 15% for large banks. The FBF is not calling for deregulation. There is a path between deregulation on the one hand and over-regulation on the other. This is the path the Federation is advocating.
The European banking sector remains at the core of economic financing and therefore of growth: nearly 80% of European companies’ external financing needs are still met by banks—far more than in the United States. The ecological, digital and energy transitions, as well as the growing financing needs for innovation, infrastructure and defence, further reinforce this role. In this context, the competitiveness of European banks is a matter of sovereignty for the continent. Their ability to sustainably finance and support households, SMEs, mid-sized companies, large corporates, local authorities, critical infrastructure and strategic projects depends entirely on the political choices that will be made.
To meet these challenges, the FBF believes that the European Union must adopt a coherent banking competitiveness strategy, as Europe will not be able to finance its industrial, climate, energy, digital or defence ambitions without a solid, profitable, innovative banking sector capable of absorbing long-term credit cycles.
Given the international context, the European Union must rely on a responsive legislative process. The European Commission’s report should ideally present targeted adjustments in the form of accelerated legislative proposals, enabling the swift revision of the most penalising prudential measures.
Although current capitalisation levels are recognised as solid by European authorities—as also demonstrated during recent crises—the level of own funds of French banks would nevertheless increase, at constant scope, from €425 billion to €475 billion by 2032.
Banks’ lending capacity is a strategic asset for Europe: each excessive or redundant regulatory constraint unnecessarily reduces the volume of credit and productive investment. Rather than compiling an exhaustive list, the FBF has identified around ten requirements that are justified by neither economic logic nor financial soundness. At the level of the six largest French banks, the proposed revisions to capital rules would make it possible to free up more than €1.3 trillion in financing capacity for economic actors, corresponding to €110 billion in own funds redirected towards financing Europe.
Restoring Banking Competitiveness to Increase the EUs Financing Capacity – Proposals and examples (PDF)
182.41 Ko
0 document bookmarked