European Securities and Markets Authority: speeches

1. Why protection underpins savings reform

Speaking in Rome in his first public appearance as head of ESMA, Carlo Comporti ties protecting small investors to Europe's drive to turn household deposits into productive investment. Shifting money out of deposits brings new risks, so savers need knowledge and confidence to compare returns with the damage inflation does to purchasing power. The three European supervisors split roles but cooperate: they are about to publish a shared catalogue of financial education projects, and ESMA works with its insurance counterpart on the retail investment strategy.

2. Substance over paperwork

Protection should be judged by what investors actually grasp and do, not by whether a form was supplied. Screen design on digital platforms, such as rankings, alerts and speed, can steer choices, and piling on disclosure may backfire. Firms stay accountable for how they design, target and distribute products. Simplification must make safeguards clearer and proportionate rather than weaker, covering design, sales information, and complaint handling after purchase. Digital tools and AI can help, provided systems stay resilient and data is shielded from cyber, quantum and AI-failure risks.

3. Measuring real outcomes

Supervisors should still audit controls, yet also test results through data analysis, consumer research, behavioural studies and mystery shopping. National authorities bring local insight, while the three European bodies must look at the customer who mixes banking, investment, insurance and crypto services. Consumer groups' evidence helps show whether rules work, and success would raise trust and participation in European capital markets.

1. A farewell hearing

In her last appearance before the European Parliament's economic committee as ESMA Chair, Verena Ross reviewed the past year and her term. Amid geopolitical tension, trade disputes and fast technological change, she argued Europe needs deep and attractive capital markets to fund innovation and growth and let citizens share in it.

2. A year of integration and simplification

She cited progress on consolidated market data feeds, the single access point for company information, preparation for next-day settlement, derivatives clearing rules and the Listing Act. Responding to industry complaints, ESMA proposed lighter transaction and fund reporting, a simpler path for retail investors and risk-based supervision, while insisting investor protection and market integrity stay intact. On crypto-assets, the focus has shifted from writing rules to supervising them consistently.

3. Looking ahead

Innovation, she added, can only grow at scale where investors trust it, so good regulation and supervision enable rather than hinder it. Recalling that ESMA has grown over fifteen years through the debt crisis, Brexit and the pandemic, now supervising more firms directly and in close partnership with national authorities, she backed the market integration and supervision package now being negotiated and said ESMA is ready for any new direct-supervision tasks, urging lawmakers to keep up the pace and remove remaining barriers so that rules and supervision match an increasingly integrated market.

1. Poland as an example

At an international finance conference in Warsaw marking 20 years of Poland's financial supervisor, ESMA Chair Verena Ross traced how Polish capital markets were built from scratch three decades ago through new laws, infrastructure and supervision. The Warsaw exchange now lists over 400 companies, is the largest in Central and Eastern Europe, and foreign investors make up nearly three-quarters of trading, which she credits to bold privatisation and market policies, EU membership and its common investor-protection rules, and strong national oversight that turned those rules into local confidence.

2. Europe's weaknesses

EU reforms on listing rules, company data access, consolidated trading data and settlement in one day from October 2027 help, but she points to fewer listings, more delistings, limited investment capacity and fragmentation that some estimate has cost trillions of euros of output. Retail and institutional investment remain too small to meet Europe's long-term needs, from defence spending to the climate and digital shifts, which also means lost opportunities for savers: Polish households save about 10% of income and invest about 5%, well below EU averages of roughly 15% and 9%. Earlier reforms, however successful, are therefore not enough, and she calls for renewed ambition.

3. The integration package

She welcomes the savings and investments union and its market integration and supervision package, which could be the most important market reform since the post-crisis era. EU-level supervision would suit truly pan-European players such as large trading venues, clearing houses, securities depositories and crypto firms, provided the criteria are realistic and ESMA works closely with national authorities while having the means to act independently. Common rules must produce common outcomes, which requires convergence tools and consistent supervision, plus cooperation arrangements tailored to each sector that avoid duplication. The package would also harmonise trading rules, allow trading groups to operate under one licence, link securities depositories through a hub model with standardised connections, and make the pilot regime for distributed-ledger infrastructure more usable so that tokenised markets can grow beyond trials.

4. Simpler rules

She stresses lighter reporting for firms and funds, an easier path for retail investors and risk-based supervision, noting Poland's supervisor has also removed national add-ons. Safeguards must stay, but the system must become leaner and more agile, combining national expertise with European ambition.

1. Markets that are European need supervision that is too

Speaking at the Eurofi conference in Dublin, ESMA Chair Verena Ross argued that firms, risks and data now cross borders so quickly that oversight confined to one country no longer fits. The EU wants deeper, more liquid markets, wider investment choice for savers and easier company funding, and she links that goal to the Commission's market integration and supervision package. Moving certain large cross-border entities under EU-level supervision is, in her view, a practical step rather than centralisation for its own sake: if firms meet different expectations in each state, they simply organise themselves around the fragmentation.

2. Simpler does not mean weaker

Ross ties the reform to burden reduction. Part of the complexity firms face comes from the rules, but part comes from uneven national application, repeated requests and slow coordination. A single integrated supervisor for truly cross-border activities could cut duplication, speed up time to market, make better use of data and let scarce expertise focus on the biggest risks. She insists this is not about doing less: cyber threats, new technology and geopolitical uncertainty make the supervised world harder, so the aim is to remove low-value complexity, not vigilance.

3. A message to lawmakers

With the Council and Parliament both aiming to settle their positions by the end of the year, she urges them not to dilute the proposal. Clear responsibilities, simple governance and matching resources are needed. A text riddled with exceptions, partial transfers or boundaries drawn to shield national champions, or EU supervision merely stacked on top of existing arrangements, would keep fragmentation alive while only looking European. She recalls that ESMA was born after a crisis, has matured since, and will implement whatever is agreed.

1. Simplification built on confidence

Speaking in Dubrovnik at a conference hosted by Croatia's HANFA and Luxembourg's CSSF, ESMA Chair Verena Ross, whose term is ending, echoed the Lamfalussy report's call twenty-five years ago for agile regulation. Beyond the question of courage to simplify, she asked whether policymakers have confidence that simpler rules can still work. Complexity can give a false sense of control and, in an unpredictable world, make the system clumsy and less competitive. She rejected indiscriminate deregulation that would weaken investor protection or stability; the aim is a strong supervisory framework, using quality data, convergence and enforcement, that reaches its goals without ever more detailed rules.

2. The cost of fragmentation

She warned that proportionality must not turn into fragmentation: each exemption or national flexibility may make sense locally, but the accumulated differences impose hidden costs on the whole market, making it harder for firms to expand, investors to find opportunities and Europe to compete. A stronger European dimension of supervision should be seen as an opportunity; it will not erase differences between markets but can make them less of a barrier.

3. A joint undertaking and the 2030 picture

Whatever negotiators decide on the market integration and supervision package, she says supervision stays a partnership that combines national expertise with a European view, built through peer reviews, joint actions, colleges and shared methods. For 2030 she pictures supervision more integrated yet rooted in national markets, digital and data-driven, focused on outcomes, with fewer box-ticking duties, lighter reporting, predictable expectations for cross-border firms and investors confident to take part, moving Europe nearer a genuine single market for capital.

1. From design to delivery

Speaking at an industry committee event in Paris on Europe's move to one-day settlement, ESMA Chair Verena Ross said the work has shifted from planning to execution. The switch date is fixed: 11 October 2027, as ESMA proposed in its 2024 report. She praised the industry committee's roadmap, handbook, checklist, testing plan and surveys as a model of public-private cooperation, and explained that the authorities' part is clarity, supervisory convergence and monitoring. The Commission's endorsement of the amended settlement-discipline standards is imminent, and the text then goes through the remaining institutional steps before it takes effect, and new rules on allocations and confirmations should start applying from 7 December 2026, because delays in those upstream steps would quickly turn into settlement pressure the next day.

2. What firms must do now

She asked firms to answer ESMA's consultation on revised allocation and confirmation guidelines, which closes on 7 July; to finish preparations, upgrading systems, improving static data and standing instructions, agreeing procedures with counterparties and cutting manual work, since automation is a precondition; and above all to check the readiness of the whole chain of clients, brokers, custodians, depositories, clearing houses, venues and vendors, because one weak link can strain everything. Testing must be built into plans for 2027, from internal to bilateral to market-wide. The shift, she concluded, is also a test of coordination, and promises lower costs and stronger capital markets.

1. Simplifying reporting

Speaking at the asset managers' association meeting in Brussels, ESMA Chair Verena Ross set four priorities: simpler reporting, digital innovation, market resilience and retail participation. On reporting, ESMA's May reports found more than 100 European and national obligations on funds and managers, so it proposes a common single template in a modular system, with managers reporting once and authorities, including the ECB and central banks, sharing and reusing the data through a central hub while national authorities still collect it. Implementation starts with AIFMD and UCITS reporting, with draft technical standards consulted by year-end and finalised in the first half of 2027. For transaction reporting, ESMA has short-term relief ideas such as revising two-sided reporting duties and an end-state integrated model across EMIR, MiFIR and SFTR, being tested through cost-benefit analysis, with attention to timelines to avoid repeated system rebuilds.

2. Tokenisation of funds

Tokenisation is often better seen as a shift in the plumbing surrounding funds than a break with the fund model; it may automate functions, speed subscriptions and redemptions, improve registers and cut reconciliations, and give investors accessibility and longer trading hours. Tokenised Treasury and money-market products total several billion dollars, small but growing. ESMA takes an evidence-based view: key questions are whether the ledger is the official register, whether transfers are final on-chain, and whether investors hold units directly, and it is working with national authorities on real cases and possible regulatory barriers. Investors must understand their rights and risks, including cyber and operational dependencies, and legal certainty and interoperability are needed so that national differences in registers, title, custody, settlement finality and insolvency do not recreate fragmentation.

3. Market resilience and vulnerabilities

The Middle East war added to tensions, bringing signs of stagflation, higher bond yields and tighter conditions, with corporate credit risk and debt sustainability concerns re-emerging. Markets and infrastructure proved resilient, including orderly clearing of energy contracts despite sharp margin calls, but valuations in some segments are stretched and markets seem optimistic about the war's duration, while performance is concentrated in technology. In an AI-driven correction, EU equity funds would be hit hard because 45% of their assets are in US equities, and tech is a third of the S&P 500 against 18% of the Euro Stoxx 50. Other watch points: hedge-fund leverage and its role in government bond turmoil, fund liquidity tools now reported systematically, and private credit of about 0.1 trillion euros, opaque, illiquid and increasingly connected to banks and insurers.

4. Retail investors

The savings and investments union puts ordinary investors at the centre, but the investor journey feels burdensome, information is complex, costs unclear and trust uneven. The Retail Investment Strategy should refocus rules on outcomes: valuable products, clear disclosures and advice aligned with investors' interests. ESMA will balance simplification with safeguards, especially disclosures and suitability, adapting information to digital channels; for the PRIIPs key document it expects changes to a product-at-a-glance section and performance, replacing scenarios with past performance for funds, and simpler cost calculations, with consumer testing. Rules alone are not enough: trust, fair costs and financial literacy matter, and success is measured by whether markets work for the people they serve.

1. Beyond the slogan

At the convention of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges, the Chair of ESMA said that after fifteen years of hearing that European markets stand at a turning point, integration has become unavoidable. Efficient markets turn ideas and savings into innovation and jobs, which Europe needs at continental scale.

2. What the data on share trading show

ESMA's recent consultation on equity market structure, based on 2022-2025 transaction reports, finds markets working well overall: addressable liquidity is stable near 85% and order-book trading near 80%. But continuous trading on visible order books is slowly shrinking, mainly on regulated exchanges, whose share fell from about 35% to 27%. Auctions are growing, and frequent batch auctions doubled to over 6%. The combined share of visible books and closing auctions on exchanges and multilateral platforms fell from about 72% to 64%, a concern since closing prices serve as benchmarks for funds and ETFs. Dark trading stays around 4-5%, while systematic internalisers rose from about 5% to almost 9%. ESMA has no fixed view yet and invites comments before 30 June, with a feedback report due later in the year.

3. A major reform package

She called the Commission's market integration and supervision package the most significant capital markets reform in years. It would create a single EU licence for venue groups operating in several countries, ease costly post-trade links so users choose providers on merit, keep rules ready for AI, distributed ledgers, quantum computing and tokenisation, and give ESMA direct supervision of the largest cross-border infrastructures after a short transition, working with national authorities.

4. The wider savings and investments union

Political backing is strong, from the European Council, the Parliament's President and an April roadmap aiming at a single capital market by 2027. Success needs better savings products, financial education and pension reforms such as automatic enrolment; 80% of European pension funds manage under €1 billion. The Listing Act, securitisation changes, the venture fund review and consolidated tapes must all advance, because each pillar supports the others. Failure would mean weaker pensions and firms growing elsewhere. Facts, legal tools and political will are available; what is missing is shared boldness across institutions, countries and the public and private sectors. Citing Goethe's Faust, she urged exchanges to seize the moment and help build an integrated, efficient and attractive European market rather than merely adapt to one more regulatory change.

1. Resilient markets and the integration package

Speaking at the ICMA annual conference in London, ESMA Chair Verena Ross said that despite geopolitical volatility and a clouded outlook, capital markets have stayed resilient, which matters because they stabilise economies, while Europe needs deep, integrated markets to finance a competitive, low-carbon economy. ESMA fully backs the savings and investments union and the market integration and supervision package. Trading and post-trading remain fragmented along national lines; a proposed pan-European trading venue regime would let operators run several venues across member states, and the many securities depositories raise settlement costs and complicate cross-border deals, so connections between hubs, reciprocal links, T2S participation and clearing interoperability would help. For key pan-European infrastructures, centralised supervision would be more consistent and give a clearer view of risk, and ESMA, with fifteen years of experience, says it is ready, though building the capability will be a challenge.

2. Deeper markets, technology and simplification

She cited the EU consolidated tape, now taking shape, to improve transparency, and the move to one-day settlement on 11 October 2027, aligned between the EU and the UK, for which everyone should prepare. Tokenisation could streamline issuance, trading and settlement, embed compliance and give supervisors real-time tools, and the DLT pilot regime shows it working; the package should improve it without creating new fragmentation. Finally, accumulated detailed and duplicative rules create complexity, so ESMA is simplifying the policy framework, focusing supervision where risks are highest and reviewing reporting under market, derivatives and financing-transaction rules to report once and use many times.