ECB president calls for European SEC creation

The head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, said that the EU needs its own version of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As Financial Times reports, citing Lagarde’s words at a speech in Frankfurt, the creation of a European SEC will help attract the huge funds needed to solve the triple problem of “deglobalization, demographics and decarbonization.”

In addition, the official called for an end to the system of national financial exchanges, saying that “the European capital market needs consolidated market infrastructures.”

Lagarde also noted that US bond markets are three times larger than those in Europe, and the volume of venture capital funding in the EU is one-fifth that of the U.S. despite the fact that the U.S. economy is more than half the size of the EU, she added.

This spring, the European Parliament voted for a law on licensing cryptocurrencies and regulating transactions. The MiCA licensing mode (Markets in Crypto-Assets) received 517 votes in favor, 38 deputies voted against and 18 abstained.

In addition, another law regulating transactions was passed with 529 votes in favor. According to it, crypto operators will be required to identify their clients in order to combat money laundering.

Operators of cryptocurrency wallets and crypto exchanges will now have to obtain a license for their activities, and issuers of stablecoins—cryptocurrencies whose rate is pegged to fiat currencies—will have to maintain significant reserves.