Press releaseavailable inEnglish,French,German,Italian,Spanish. Individual country analysis available forUK, France,Germany,Italy,Spain. Record levels of capital markets funding supported EU businesses in the first half of 2021, reflecting significant recapitalisation needs in response to the pandemic and favourable conditions for raising capital; Capital markets funding to European SMEs grew at a record rate, with the increase predominantly driven by venture capital and private equity growth funds; In spite of these record growth rates, absolute levels of market-based financing remain below those of other major jurisdictions. Additionally, securitisation issuance levels continued to decline; The increases observed may be influenced by the extraordinary conditions of the past year, public support programmes and other factors; ESG issuance in Europe continues to expand in Europe, up 69% compared to 2020; Inefficient withholding tax collection procedures continue to be a barrier to cross-border integration in EU securities markets. European capital markets activity has surged in the past year as businesses emerging from the pandemic have sought to raise capital according to a report published today by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) in collaboration with 10 other European and international organisations. The fourth edition of the “Capital Markets Union Key Performance Indicators” report tracks how individual Member States have progressed against 8 key performance indicators on metrics such as access to market finance, levels of bank lending, transition to sustainable finance and a supportive fintech environment. Adam Farkas, Chief Executive of AFME, said: “This year, Europe’s capital markets have remained resilient and continued to support businesses, with our report showing a surge in funding raised through the markets. However, there is no room for complacency: a structural and pandemic-induced “equity gap” remains and equity-type finance still needs to be expanded in Europe. It also remains to be seen to what extent these record market-based financing levels will persist, or whether they are a temporary result of the extraordinary support measures of the past year. “Our report also shows there is still much work to do on enhancing the provision of risk capital to meet themajorlong-terminvestment needs of thegreen and digital transitions, improving the functioning of securitisation and tackling long-standing frictions in EU capital markets, such as inefficient withholding tax procedures. In this respect, the Capital Markets Union project remains vital for the single market and must be implemented fully.” Key findings: European primary capital markets continued to expand during H1 2021 for the third consecutive year, with the proportion of markets-based funding for EU corporates rising to 16.8%; Many European SMEs have benefited from funding availability from private markets. Europe is the fastest-growing major region by private capital investment with investment in European SMEs growing by 2.4 times year-on-year in the first half of 2021. European households have increased the amount of capital markets savings over the last 2 years, although this is predominantly driven by valuation gains of existing products. Countries that entered the COVID-19 crisis with low capital markets savings have increased the most their bank deposit holdings, which suggests that investment vehicles and household incentives could be enhanced in some Member States; The depth of the EU securitisation market has declined over the last 3 years. Unlike in the US, the proportion of EU securitised products and loan disposals relative to total loans outstanding has consistently declined over the last 3 years. This remains an area of concern as securitisation facilitates risk transfer and enables the banking sector to transform loans into tradeable securities, thereby allowing banks to continue lending to corporates; The EU continued to improve the local FinTech ecosystem with the launch of new regulatory sandboxes in Austria, Spain, Hungary, and Greece over the last year. The EU has also benefitted from a record increase in funding which has also resulted in a rapid surge in the number and valuation of FinTech unicorns (i.e. growth companies valued above $1bn); EU ESG debt markets have expanded rapidly during H1 2021, with total issuance of ESG-labelled bonds reaching EUR 201.4 bn, representing 19.6% of total EU bond issuance during the first half of 2021; As a special feature of this edition, we have included an analysis of the current variations between Member States in their procedures for withholding tax relief, which have a significant negative impact on cross-border investment, cost of capital and GDP. In 10 of the 27 EU Member States there is a lack of a relief-at-source mechanism which frequently results in long delays in tax reclaim reducing investor returns. The report was authored by AFME with the support of the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), as well as European trade associations representing: business angels (BAE, EBAN), fund and asset management (EFAMA), crowdfunding (ECN), retail and institutional investors (European Investors), stock exchanges (FESE), venture capital and private equity (Invest Europe), private credit and direct lending (ACC) and pension funds (Pensions Europe). – Ends –

Following the publication of the UK Government’s Roadmap on Greening Finance, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) issued the following statement: AFME welcomes today’s announcements and the publication of a detailed roadmap for sustainable finance, including the implementation of integrated sustainability disclosure requirements and the development of a Green Taxonomy in the UK. The financial services sector plays a vital role in supporting the transition to net zero. It is important to put in place a clear framework for corporate sustainability reporting and to provide clarity and consistency of classification of environmentally sustainable investments in order to enable investors to effectively and efficiently allocate capital in support of the transition. Oliver Moullin, Managing Director for Sustainable Finance, said “Today’s announcements provide important details on the UK’s implementation of its roadmap for greening finance. The building blocks of sustainability disclosures and the development of a Green Taxonomy should form key enablers of the financial sector’s role in mobilising capital to support the transition to Net Zero.” As the UK proceeds with implementing its roadmap, AFME strongly supports the UK Government continuing to seek progress at the international level to maximise international consistency of approaches to taxonomies and reporting standards. Well designed and appropriately sequenced Sustainability Disclosure Requirements are essential to ensure that financial institutions and investors have the necessary data to allocate capital to support transition plans, and for their own disclosures and risk management. Improved quality and consistency of ESG data is also a vital tool to help combat greenwashing and improve the quality and comparability of ESG ratings. In developing a Green Taxonomy, the Government should aim to minimize fragmentation and support global capital markets by reflecting on experiences with the EU Taxonomy as well as ongoing work by the International Platform on Sustainable Finance. It will also be important to take into account the recommendations of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA) Global Guiding Principles for Developing Climate Finance Taxonomies[1]. Alongside sustainability disclosures and the development of a Green Taxonomy, businesses, banks and investors need a clear roadmap for the economy-wide transition to a low carbon economy, enabling them to design and assess credible and effective strategies in support of the transition. -ENDS – GFMA Global Guiding Principles for Developing Climate Finance Taxonomies, available at https://www.gfma.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/global-principles-for-climate-taxonomy.pdf

The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has today published a paper investigating the impact of the pandemic on the use of the buffer framework and recommending improvements to its viability. During the Covid-19 pandemic, central banks allowed banks to draw on their capital buffers to ensure lending to the economy continued and to avoid a crisis. This is the first time that the use of capital buffers has been called into action since the framework was established as part of the reforms post the financial crisis. AFME’s paper shows that despite central banks encouraging banks to use their buffers, very few actually dipped into them for a number of reasons, primarily because of the stigma associated with triggering the Maximum Distributable Amount (MDA) - the capital level that a financial institution must meet in order to be able to make distributions such as dividend and remuneration pay-outs. In light of this, the report recommends: a rebalancing of the Capital Conservation buffer and Countercyclical Capital buffer; better coordinated supervisory communication; and a more transparent, rules-based MDA framework. Constance Usherwood, Director of Prudential Regulation, at AFME said: “As we emerge from the pandemic it is important so see what lessons can be drawn from the way in which regulators expected banks to make use of the capital buffer framework and how effective this was. While the industry welcomes the supervisory measures which were taken, supporting banks to continue lending, there is evidence to suggest that in practice, banks did not want to draw on their buffers due to negative interactions with other parts of the macroprudential framework, such as MDA triggers. “We think the usability of buffers could be improved by reducing stigma from breaching MDA triggers through a rebalancing between the Capital Conservation buffer and the Countercyclical Capital buffer. In addition, there is room for improved and coordinated supervisory communication and a more transparent, rules-based MDA framework.” The need to make buffers more releasable has been recognised by both the FSB and the BCBS in their assessments of the policy measures taken during the pandemic. In the FSB’s interim report to the , which is soon to be followed up with a final report, they suggest “it may be beneficial to consider whether there is sufficient releasable capital in place to address future systemic shocks”. The European Commission has also recently mandated the EBA to review the macro-prudential framework in advance of a legislative review in 2022, which will consider the overall design of the buffer framework. – Ends –

Ahead of the MIFIR Review, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has today published its position on a Consolidated Tape in Europe. Adam Farkas, Chief Executive at AFME, said: “As the MiFIR Review fast approaches, all corners of the financial markets industry are articulating their needs for a consolidated tape in Europe. From AFME’s members’ perspective the use case is clear: in equities markets we need a real-time consolidated tape in Europe that provides access for all investors to help build deeper and more open capital markets in Europe. “An equity real-time consolidated tape would cut costs and democratise access to all retail investors across the EU, contributing to the creation of a truly pan-European market. This technological solution would help advance the objectives of the Capital Markets Union, while ensuring that interconnected national ecosystems continue to serve local communities. “This is also why having diverse market structure is vital, providing investor choice and competitiveness. The establishment of a consolidated tape should not in any way interfere with the existing market structure in the EU – policy makers need to protect market diversity which is the backbone of healthy, resilient, and competitive European financial markets. In this respect, a consolidated tape would also aid with reducing the market power of trading venues when selling real-time, extremely expensive, post-trade data. “Now is the time to address Europe’s lack of competitiveness with regards to having a single price comparison tool for investors across Europe. However, it will be important to get the balance right, so that it makes sense for investors at the heart of the tape, without damaging market structure.” In order for a Consolidated Tape (CT) to work, AFME members recommend: The equity CT must be real-time – there is no business case for a delayed tape, given that the legal framework already requires the provision of market data, free of charge, 15 minutes after publication. Conversely, an equity real time tape offers a number of benefits. Data quality should be addressed alongside the development of a CT – the implementation of the post-trade transparency regimes under MiFID II identified a number of data quality issues relating to SI and OTC post-trade reporting, particularly the treatment of non-addressable/non-price forming trades which should be excluded for the purposes of post-trade transparency. The bond CT needs to ensure committed liquidity providers are not exposed to undue risk by not publishing post-trade details until after the deferral period has expired. MiFID II introduced deferrals because it was recognised that real time post-trade transparency can expose committed liquidity providers to undue risks, especially when trading in illiquid instruments or transactions above a certain size, hence diminishing the liquidity available to corporates and investors. The establishment of a CT must not impact the well-established market structure framework in Europe The cost of accessing the CT should be as low as possible in order to democratise market data within Europe and ensure healthy, competitive markets Mandatory data contribution to the CT – trading venues, APAs and systematic internalisers (SIs) should be required to provide market data, free of charge, to the CTP. Without this approach, costs will ultimately be passed on end users and this could limit the number of firms consuming data, reducing the commercial incentive for the emergence of a single consolidated tape provider. No mandatory consumption of the CT – market participants should not be forced to consume the CT as, in many cases, this will mean that firms are forced to pay for the same data via direct feeds and via the CT (i.e. paying for the same data twice). Instead, a CT should be appropriately constructed so that it provides an offering that is economically attractive to market data users. This will ensure the continued success of a CT. There should be a single CTP for each asset class– without a single provider, the risk of multiple providers emerging with potentially different or overlapping product scopes may defeat the purpose of having a truly consolidated view of the market and increase costs to consumers. – Ends –

In response to ESMA’s recent public consultation, dated 1 October, calling for evidence on retail investor protection issues, such as payment for order flow (PFOF), the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has issued the following statement: AFME agrees that payment for order flow (PFOF) models are unlikely to be compatible with existing MiFID II rules on avoiding conflicts of interests and ensuring best execution outcomes for clients. AFME also agrees that a review of PFOF models should be undertaken to encourage greater supervisory convergence among EU Member States. The safeguards put in place by MiFID II rules ensure that investors are suitably protected and that the primary goal of investment firms is to achieve best execution outcomes for their clients. Clients and regulators should be able to test claims from retail brokers that they are offering best execution through any liquidity provider which pays for order flow. We note that a consolidated tape showing prevailing available prices at the time of the receipt of a client order would assist in verifying these claims by reviewing a retail broker’s executions in aggregate. – Ends – Notes to Editors: MiFID II has strict requirements for investment firms to manage conflicts of interest. Firms are required to take all appropriate steps to identify and prevent or manage any conflicts of interest “between themselves… and their clients… including those caused by the receipt of inducements from third parties”. MiFID II also explicitly states that firms need to prevent conflicts of interest in the first instance and to rely on disclosure only as a last resort. These requirements are set out under Articles 23, 24 and 27 within MiFID II which cover conflicts of interest, best execution and inducements respectively. Some National Competent Authorities have commented on payment for order flow including the AMF[1] and FCA[2] agreeing that MiFID rules prevent conflicts of interest and ensure best execution for clients [1] Speech by Robert Ophele (AMF Chairman), March 2021 – link here [2] FCA supervisory guidance, April 2019 – link here

The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has today submitted its response to the UK Treasury Wholesale Markets Review Consultation. Adam Farkas, Chief Executive of AFME, said: “The UK Wholesale Markets Review is a key moment for the industry and policy makers to reflect on how well capital markets are functioning. “The Review is comprehensive and proposes a number of changes to existing MiFID II provisions. It is vital that any future changes to rules governing how financial markets operate continue to support the development of capital markets in Europe, ensuring that they remain open, competitive and diverse. “AFME’s members are global wholesale banks that support European clients internationally, therefore, it is a priority to ensure the continuity of cross-border services and to avoid market fragmentation at all costs.” Among some of the key points in AFME’s response are: Supporting the removal of the STO and DVC AFME supports the removal of both the Share Trading Obligation (STO) and the Double Volume Caps (DVC) because these rules have not resulted in positive outcomes for investors and instead have increased complexity in market structure. With respect to the DVC, European equity markets are alone in having a volume-based constraint on undisplayed liquidity. This makes them global outliers in placing unnecessary caps on this type of trading activity, rather than enabling better execution performance for end investors. Meanwhile, the STO has had the unintended consequence of restricting firms’ access to the most liquid markets, making the delivery of best outcomes for investors more challenging. AFME has long argued that this is a feature which can render markets less attractive as a place in which to invest or raise capital. AFME has consistently called for the removal of both the DVC and STO and therefore welcomes the UK Treasury’s proposal to remove them and strongly encourages the European Authorities to do the same. AFME supports the UK Treasury’s proposal to ensure that the price formation process will continue to be monitored by the FCA. Improving primary market communication to avoid market outages AFME supports HMT’s proposal to have an industry playbook for both venues and market participants to follow in the event of an outage. In its response, AFME has set out recommendation on the key components of a playbook, which include: Accurate and timely identification of outages by participants and trading venues. An orderly halt to trading on the affected venue, and redirection of trading to alternate venues. Reliable and standardised broadcast of details surrounding the outage, order status, planned resolution and re-opening by the trading venue. A minimum time between participants being notified of a venue re-opening and trading on that venue re-commencing. Orderly restart of the affected trading venue and resumption of its trading without disruption to continued trading on other venues. Use of the reference price waiver (RPW) HMT proposes enabling reference price systems to match orders at the mid-point within the current bid and offer of any UK or non-UK trading venue, rather than the price of the primary market that has been the status quo since MIFID was implemented. AFME believes that this approach ensures that the price being used will be a reflection of the best execution conditions based on the nature of the order. Additionally, AFME members believe that HMT’s proposal will lay the groundwork for a solution to primary market outages as it would facilitate market participants moving trading onto an alternative venue in the case of an outage on the primary market. Creation of a Consolidated Tape AFME members agree that the UK Government should take action to encourage the development of a Consolidated Tape (CT) for both equities and bonds.AFME believes that the provision of an appropriately constructed CT could democratise access for all investors, regardless of resources or sophistication, with a comprehensive and standardised view of the trading landscape. However, design of an appropriately constructed CT raises many challenges, which must be thoroughly thought through ahead of any regulation or guidance being drafted toensure that ahigh qualitydata source is built. Improving MIFIR’s reporting framework AFME has long advocated for a review of MIFIR’s reporting framework. The existing regime creates uncertainty about who should report the trade and can lead to duplicative reporting, resulting in weak quality of the existing data sets. AFME proposes that the link between the Systematic Internaliser (SI) status and Post-Trade transparency/reporting is removed and that a designated reporting entity register is created and maintained by the FCA. This would remove uncertainty on who should report a transaction and, as a consequence, will lead to enhanced quality of the reported data. This approach would also provide the benefit that firms qualifying or opted in as SIs will only be those firms acting as liquidity providers. This would provide much-needed clarity to the overall equity market structure. Improving liquidity calculations for bonds The liquidity calculations to determine which bonds should be deemed liquid is a key element of the MIFIR transparency framework. AFME has been a long-standing supporter of a well-calibrated transparency framework for bonds, which recognises the heterogeneity of fixed income markets and that does not put committed liquidity providers at undue risk. The fact that the quality of existing data sets remains patchy makes liquidity calculations based on quantitative criteria only, prone to false positives (i.e. bonds deemed liquid that are effectively illiquid). AFME members are supportive of HMT’s proposal to move away from regular liquidity calculations based on quantitative criteria only, in favour of a qualitative and quantitative criteria. The current liquidity calculations outlined under MiFIR/MiFID II are complex and do not accurately measure or capture true liquidity within the market. Well-balanced and measured qualitative criteria, that more accurately captures and reflects true liquidity within the market would help smoothing out false determinations of liquidity. The HMT Wholesale Markets Review’s objective is to ensure UK regulation remains fit for purpose and proportionate for UK capital markets. This is a sensible approach to better regulate financial markets. AFME advocates for the same approaches both in the UK and the EU. – Ends –

A new report published today by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) and Protiviti outlines potential key regulatory barriers to the greater adoption of cloud services in capital markets and provides recommendations for policymakers and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to assist banks with their adoption. The report entitled “Building Resilience in the Cloud” finds that, while banks are increasing migration to the cloud and identifying solutions to address regulatory concerns, two solutions that are becoming increasingly proposed by policymakers - portability and multi-cloud strategies – are likely to introduce further barriers to adoption. The report presents an assessment of five scenarios, covering the failure of a CSP in a particular region through to the loss of an entire CSP globally, to highlight why these solutions may not be appropriate in all instances. The report finds that the proposed recommendations from policymakers around portability and multi-cloud strategies would present significant challenges to banks from adopting a risk-based approach, limiting the benefits of cloud services and increasing the technical complexity to support multiple CSPs. James Kemp, Managing Director, AFME, said: “Banks are adopting cloud for a wide range of benefits, including greater business agility, innovation opportunities, and the ability to increase their security and resilience. We have seen through the pandemic that cloud services have been fundamental to enable remote working and provide access to core IT and business services. “However, emerging policy in the EU and globally is in danger of mandating how banks adopt cloud because of the perceived risks for security, the concentration of providers, and resilience of the sector overall. While the solutions being discussed, such as ensuring portability or the use of multi-cloud strategies, can provide resiliency benefits, they risk introducing significant limitations and complexity which would lead to reduced cloud adoption overall. “Banks should not be limited in taking a risk-based approach tailored to their cloud usage and technical needs allowing them to deploy multiple complementary solutions for resilience, rather than specific solutions being mandated for all.” James Fox, Director, Enterprise Cloud at Protiviti, said: “With digital transformation continuing to drive the adoption of cloud within financial services, we have seen that banks in particular are becoming increasingly more confident in using the cloud for sensitive workloads. Despite increased regulatory attention, we have seen an overwhelming demand from banks for access to new and innovative services powered by the cloud, which increases security and resilience and enables banks to quickly react to unforeseen events, such as COVID-19, due to the flexibility and configurability of the cloud. By working with banks on this paper, we have seen the range of mechanisms that are actively being used to enhance the security and design of cloud infrastructure that allows incidents to be resolved quickly and efficiently. Whilst banks are proactively taking a risk-based approach to the adoption of the cloud, there is a need for further clarity on cloud resilience, risk requirements and the opportunities that exist for sharing best practice between banks.“ Recommendations in the paper where policymakers and engagement from CSPs can assist banks with the resilient adoption of cloud services include: Ensure regional and global alignment on cloud resilience and risk expectations; Enhance information sharing and transparency requirements for CSPs; Promote increased comparison amongst CSP service offerings; and Encourage cloud cross-border data flows and storage. – Ends –

Following the publication of the results of the EBA’s 2021 stress test, Michael Lever, Head of Prudential Regulation at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), said: “AFME is pleased to note that the European banking system remains well capitalised even after taking account of the impact from extremely harsh assumptions which formed the basis of the test.” “The EBA’s stress test adverse scenario was based on a narrative of an extended Covid-19 outturn in a “lower for longer” interest rate environment in which negative confidence shocks would prolong economic contraction. The assumptions used for economic growth, unemployment and market stress were substantially more severe than those applied in previous stress exercises and have become far less plausible in the light of a stronger than anticipated recovery from Covid-19, subsequent upgrades to economic forecasts and resilient market performances. While it is acknowledged that the improved economic outlook has benefitted from substantial fiscal and monetary support from governments and central banks, it is nevertheless imperative that when reviewing the stress test results that this “distance to reality” is recognised and taken into account in supervisory actions particularly in relation to Pillar 2 guidance and when evaluating distribution policies.” “AFME and its members continue to support a robust European stress testing framework to determine the resilience of banks and the financial system against long tail risks and look forward to contributing to its further development.” – Ends –

In response to the publication today of the European Commission’s consultation on the Article 46 review of the Securitisation Regulation, Richard Hopkin, Head of Fixed Income at AFME, said: “Today’s consultation is an important step in the review of the securitisation framework in order to improve the functioning of this vital funding and capital management tool in Europe. For the last 13 years, securitisation placed issuance has struggled to exceed much more than around EUR100 billion a year – much less than in the United States. The simple, transparent and standardised (STS) securitisation framework – a global “gold standard” - has struggled to attract new issuers and investors due to overly complex compliance requirements and only very limited recognition provided in associated capital and liquidity regulations.” “Securitisation can do so much more, so this needs to change - particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Securitisation is uniquely placed to help address some of long-term economic damage caused by the pandemic through its ability to transfer risk while still enabling banks to continue to lend. Furthermore, if well supported, ESG and green securitisation can also make an important contribution to funding the transition to a more sustainable economy. With EUR 603 million of green securitisation issued as at FY 2020, the market has the potential to grow with a well-designed regulatory environment.” “The review therefore needs to be ambitious and focus on introducing more proportionality and risk-sensitivity in the Securitisation Regulation, as well as in the treatment of securitisation in sectoral regulations governing bank capital and liquidity (CRR), insurance company capital (Solvency 2) and other areas.”

On 14 July 2021, sixteen trade associations* representing buy-side, sell-side and market infrastructures, wrote to ESMA and the European Commission regarding the timeline for implementation of the mandatory buy-in rules as part of the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) Settlement Discipline Regime. The Joint Associations welcome the Report from the Commission on the CSDR Review published in July 2021 and fully support the Commission’s intention to consider amendments to the mandatory buy-in regime, subject to an impact assessment. In light of this, the Joint Associations request ESMA and the Commission to take action to ensure that the mandatory buy-in rules for non-CCP transactions are not subject to application on 1 February 2022, when the relevant RTS is currently set to enter into force, and to provide clarity to market participants on the matter on an urgent basis. The Joint Associations remain committed to further improving settlement efficiency in Europe’s capital markets. – Ends – *The sixteen trade associations include: the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), L’Association Française des Professionnels des Titres (AFTI), the Association of Global Custodians European Focus Committee, the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), l’Associazione Italiana Intermediari dei Mercati Finanziari (Assosim) the, European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB), the European Association of Public Banks (EAPB), the European Banking Federation (EBF), the Electronic Debt Markets Association(EDMA), the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA), the European Venues and Intermediaries Association (EVIA), the Futures Industry Association (FIA), ICI Global, the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA), the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), and the International Securities Lending Association (ISLA).