The list of regulations that may potentially impact the customer data management space has increased further still this week to 24, according to CEO of think tank JWG PJ Di Giammarino. The recent package of reforms proposed by the European Commission, including proposals relating to deposit guarantees, investor compensation and insurance guarantee schemes, says Di Giammarino, who has been monitoring the space as part of JWG’s Customer Data Management Group (CDMG) activities. Last month, the group also joined forces with the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) to visit the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) in Paris to discuss the data impacts of incoming regulation.
The CDMG, which was established back in 2008, has been working on defining a new data rulebook for the customer data space in Europe and engaging the regulatory community in a more open discussion about the regulatory impact on data standards. To this end, earlier this year, the group published its finalised industry guidance on the maintenance of wholesale customer data, which aims to provide senior managers with the ability to understand the issues surrounding customer data and to benchmark their practices. A vital part of this work has been tracking new regulatory developments and their potential impact on the reference data management function.
The European Commission’s recent proposals aimed at boosting confidence in the financial sector, which are due to be discussed on 12 July, are examples of such regulatory developments. The proposal to improve deposit guarantees in European banks, for example, will require better management and tracking of customer data across an institution to ensure these obligations are met. Similarly, investor compensation and the Insurance Guarantees Schemes will also require a more joined up approach for firms operating across European member states.
These items will also likely crop up on the agenda at the group’s next meeting with CESR, as a follow up to the initial talks that happened on 23 June. Di Giammarino indicates that the June talks involved discussion about a potential case for a clear mandate for regulators to get directly involved in the drawing up of a data rulebook for the industry. Participants in the discussion included representatives from key firms involved in the CDMG work such as Citi and Société Générale Securities Services (SGSS), as well as Francis Gross, head of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) external statistics division (a key proponent of the data utility for Europe plan) and ISO’s Karla McKenna.
Di Giammarino is hopeful that the next meeting will see further action towards achieving greater regulatory engagement that was first hinted at by Arja Voipio, senior advisor at the Financial Supervisory Authority in Finland (FIN-FSA) and chair of CESR-Tech, the information technology governance structure of CESR, back in February. At the time, she noted that regulators were open to communicating more with the industry on getting data quality right. Industry participants should not be afraid of talking directly with regulators about their data management challenges and working together to establish a dialogue around achieving greater reference data standardization, she said.
For its own part, the ECB is currently reviewing its internal data requirements in order to be able to comprehensively track systemic risk data across Europe by pulling the relevant data from banks in the region.
More information on the European Commission’s proposals is available here.
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