Supervisory practices in Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands “appeared insufficient” during the years that Brexit pushed financial services away from the United Kingdom to EU member states, a peer review among European financial supervisors has found. Luxembourg’s supervisor disagrees with the review’s conclusions.
Analysing how national supervisors in the EU dealt with the relocation of financial firms in the post-Brexit era, a peer review made through the European Securities and Market Authority, Esma, concluded that practices in Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands “did not meet supervisory expectations”.
More generally, the review made clear that national supervisors made extensive use of outsourcing and delegation arrangements; and that several firms relocated with limited technical and human resources in the EU. Supervisors applied different interpretations of proportionality when it came to substance requirements. “This led in certain cases to some smaller firms relocating with only very minimal set-ups.”
‘Important recommendations’
The peer review “focused on some of the areas where full convergence was most difficult to achieve and therefore sets out important recommendations,” said Esma chair Verena Ross. “These recommendations will help to promote further supervisory convergence at EU level and to strengthen the authorisation process of (national supervisors) for the future.”
The review found, among others, the three national supervisors in these countries had authorised applicant firms that lacked staff numbers in terms of senior managers, and human and technical resources. It also found that supervisory expectations in regards to delegation arrangements were not met.
White label services
Luxembourg was also singled out in the peer review because of how its supervisors handled so-called “white label” service activities. The CSSF did not specifically monitor this during the review period, although it did conduct a survey on White Label practices in the second quarter of 2021, after the review period.
In its response to the review, available as an annex to the report, CSSF said it disagrees with the conclusion on white label activities, said this was subject to supervisory work, and noted that the business increase resulting from Brexit “was only marginal” compared to the total assets under management domiciled in Luxembourg.
“The CSSF is surprised by some of the findings now raised by the peer review committee, and expresses strong disagreement with both the overall process and some of the individual findings,” the supervisor said. “The CSSF believes that weaknesses identified across the jurisdictions reviewed should form the basis for further convergence work.”
‘Common European approach’
Dutch supervisor Autoriteit FM said the review made clear that there were limits to what national supervisors could do at the time Brexit took place. “This relates to areas such as outsourcing, delegation and adequate contractual staffing; topics that require further discussions and would benefit from a common European approach.”