EBF: Market Integration Package Crucial for Savings and Investments Union

Brussels, 4 December 2025 – The European Banking Federation (EBF) notes the publication of the Market Integration and Supervision Package. This marks a decisive step toward delivering the objectives of the Savings and Investments Union Strategy (SIU). The EBF has long advocated for deep, competitive, and well-integrated capital markets in the EU. Scaling up EU capital markets is urgently needed to finance Europe’s innovation, growth, competitiveness, and resilience in the years ahead, alongside strong bank financing. A key priority for building the Savings and Investments Union is the adoption of structural reforms by both the EU and its Member States. They need to embrace a genuine Capital Markets mindset. Increasing retail participation in EU capital markets is essential. This ensures more European households can benefit from the wealth created by Europe’s companies. In this context, well-functioning, efficient and integrated capital markets are essential to achieving higher participation. Issuers and investors are best served by a dynamic and innovative infrastructure landscape, where competition and diversity across the trading and post-trading spaces help reduce cost, deepen liquidity and optimise price discovery. The objectives and ambition of the Market Integration and Supervision Package to further harmonise, simplify and modernise rules, and strengthen supervisory processes represent a positive signal. In particular, EBF welcomes: EBF welcomes the enhancement of supervisory-convergence tools made available to ESMA. Also, the introduction of a new objective mandate to support innovation is positive. While supervisory reforms alone cannot deliver the SIU, greater harmonisation of practices can help address cross-border risks proportionately. It also limits divergences in EU legislation implementation across Member States. The transformation of the Settlement Finality Directive into a Regulation, which is expected to provide clearer and more predictable rules in the event of a capital-market participant’s insolvency. Finally, the EBF reiterates the importance of ensuring that new rules do not add complexity and excessive burden on participants, issuers and investors.