The European Banking Authority (EBA) recently published its annual report on Asset Encumbrance. As COVID-19 spread across Europe and activity in primary markets froze, banks made extensive use of central bank liquidity facilities to build precautionary liquidity buffers. In this context, after decreasing by 80bp in 2019 to 25%, in the first half of 2020, the asset encumbrance ratio went up to 27.5%. In the first half of 2020, the volume of total assets and collateral received rose by almost 10% while encumbered assets and collateral increased by more than 20%. Continue reading…

A major tax swindle involving sales of fuels has been brought to an end by the German authorities, with international judicial support in 11 European countries coordinated by Eurojust. During an action day, two suspects were arrested in Austria and Poland, allegedly the leaders of a criminal network that defrauded the German tax authorities of an amount of close to EUR 8 million. A total of 40 places have been searched in 11 countries, including 10 in Germany, in cities such as Hamburg, Bremen, Duisburg and Freiburg. Continue reading…

The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the acquisition of Refinitiv by the London Stock Exchange Group (‘LSEG’). The approval is conditional on full compliance with a commitments package offered by LSEG. Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: “Infrastructure competition in trading services and access to financial data products on fair and equal terms is essential for the European economy and in particular for consumers and businesses. The Commission can approve the proposed acquisition of Refinitiv by LSEG because LSEG offered commitments that will ensure that the markets will remain open and competitive and the acquisition will not lead to higher prices or less choice and innovation for these products.” The decision follows an in-depth investigation of the proposed transaction, which combines the activities of LSEG and Refinitiv. LSEG is a global financial markets infrastructure business. It also offers financial data products. Refinitiv is a provider of financial data products. It also controls Tradeweb, which operates trading venues. Continue reading…

Mr. Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, recently gave a speech at the Deutsche Bundesbank’s internal discussion series on “Digitalisation and central banking – Is there a fundamental change under way?”. I hope you are all safe and still in good spirits despite this latest surge in Covid-19. This has been the strangest year in my memory, but rather than dwell on that, I thought I would look to the bright future on the other side of this pandemic. Specifically, I want to talk about central bankers of the future. And that means yourselves – our bright future. I hope my reflections resonate and I very much look forward to your feedback and questions afterwards. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

As is known, a large settlement of 775 million euros was reached on 3 September 2018 between ING Bank and the Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands. This large settlement came to a standstill and ING Bank paid the amount nicely. In other words, ING’s shareholders paid for this with some having felt disadvantaged. In the meantime, it has become known that the Court of Appeal in The Hague is of the opinion that the former CEO of ING, Mr. Ralph Hamers, should be prosecuted. Ralph Hamers is now the new CEO of the large Swiss bank, UBS. We wondered how the “fit and proper” test by the Swiss regulator took place in this regard and asked a few questions in writing to FINMA, the Swiss regulator. Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

The Ashton Whiteley Scam illustrates how financial crime really works. Not a lot of personal cases were shared with the public before in order to make financial crime tangible. Here is an outline of events of a victim of the Ahston Whiteley Scam a couple of years ago. On the 10th of July 2017, a man was approached by a lady who called herself Julia Wright. She came across as a professional; introducing the company she works for as a well-known, reputable and solid firm, operating in the financial world with customers from all over the world. Because of expansion ideas in Europe, the company approached a selected number of potential investors for their future plans.  Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t have asked the head of military to make sure that Donald Trump would not be able to launch a nuclear strike during his final days in office, if the national and international threat wouldn’t be as realistic as that. Trump remains commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. In fact, the world does not realise the severity of what happened at the Capitol and the role of Trump in these events. I may only hope that everyone who downplayed the risks of the presidency of Donald Trump will feel a lot of regret, if not now then someday. Continue reading…

Europol and Eurojust have recently signed a contribution agreement that will expand their partnership in supporting law enforcement and judicial authorities with cross-border access to electronic evidence. This new agreement, in place from January 2021 to June 2024, reinforces the success of the SIRIUS project and sets about its second phase of development and enhancement. Launched by Europol in 2017, the SIRIUS project aims to foster the co-development of practical and innovative tools and solutions for EU law enforcement and judicial authorities that can support internet-based investigations. Eurojust has made a significant contribution to the SIRIUS project by providing the perspective of EU judicial authorities. Under this new agreement, Eurojust becomes a full partner of the project. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

A cat in a corner makes strange jumps. But the current President of the United States made it very colourful. The whole world was able to witness this last night. Once again it appears that power politics was and is leading with Trump. Well, he will have to answer to various judges immediately after his presidency and that could turn out to be very unpleasant for him. The word “folk driver” comes up spontaneously when you study the images from yesterday. Let’s take a look at the two topics of integrity and honesty. Integrity bring a frown to all eyebrows. An attack on the independent press and on the election results if you lose turns out to be “bon ton”. And then honesty: How many thousands of scientifically controlled lies should one be able to tell and tweet? The Washington Post has meticulously mapped it all out. It will be years there for the fanatical Trump supporters to understand, should that ever happen again. Once more, proof that the combination of poor education and allowed gun possession is an extremely risky combination.

On December 30, a summit meeting took place between the EU and the People’s Republic of China, with the EU represented by Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen and China by its communist capitalist leader Xi Jin Ping. The agreement concluded on December 30 is in fact the result of many negotiations. As far as possible with a country like China, it is better that a few things are entrusted to paper. Still, there are still some questions left and the answers to them can be found below. The agreement came about under the German Presidency of the EU, perhaps with the necessary pressure behind the scenes from the German automotive industry. Continue reading…