Following the example of the U.S. ShadowFinancial Regulatory Committee a group of European professors and otherindependent experts in the fields of banking, finance and theregulation of financial institutions and markets set up the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee(ESFRC) in Spring 1998. The chairman of the Committee is Professor HaraldBenink, who is a professor of finance at the Rotterdam School ofManagement of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands and who isa senior associate to the Financial Markets Group (FMG) of the LondonSchool of Economics (LSE). For contact please send an e-mail to: h.benink@fbk.eur.nl.
Members of the Committee The ESFRC consists of the following 15 members, coming from 11 European countries and from the United States:
Press Coverage Press coverage on the Committee’s activities has included The Economist (London), Financial Times (London), The Banker (London), Euromoney (London), Financial Regulation Report (London), Journal of International Banking Regulation (London), Reuters (London), Dow Jones (London), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), Handelsblatt (Frankfurt), Les Echos (Paris), La Tribune (Paris), Il Sole 24 Ore (Milan), Borsa & Finanza (Milan), Expansión (Madrid), Finanz und Wirtschaft (Zurich), Finanzmarkt und Portfolio Management (Luzern), Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich), Børsen (Copenhagen), Dagens Industri (Stockholm), Kauppalehti (Helsinki), Taloussanomat (Helsinki), Rzeczpospolita (Warsaw), Het Financieele Dagblad (Amsterdam), and De Telegraaf (Amsterdam). Independence of the Committee The European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee meets three timesevery year. The ‘shadow’ function of the ESFRC is related to theCommittee’s purpose of following and analysing critically the existingand evolving regulatory framework for financial institutions andmarkets. Moreover, at the end of each meeting the ESFRC organises aninternational press conference during which a public statement isissued on topics discussed during its meeting. The Committee is fullyindependent of the providers, regulators and supervisors of financialservices whose behaviour it aims to evaluate. The independence of the ESFRC is also expressed by the fact that theCommittee will not accept sponsoring by financial institutions andregulatory/supervisory authorities. Analytical Mission The analysis of the regulatory framework is based on existing andproposed European Union directives, national regulations,recommendations by international forums such as the Basel Committee andthe Group of Thirty, and on relevant academic research in this field.Typically, the Committee tries to translate concepts drawn fromacademic literature into concrete policy recommendations with respectto certain subject areas. Topics to be covered by the ESFRC during thecoming years could include: remaining barriers to the completion of theEU single market for financial services, guidelines for the design offinancial services regulation, the pros and cons of universal bankingand bancassurance, banks and derivatives, electronic payment servicesby non-banks, supervision of financial conglomerates and non-banks,supervision on a European level vs. home country control, capitalrequirements, and state ownership and/or support of financialinstitutions.
