ECON draft report on digital assets

The European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) has published a draft report (dated 19 February) on digital assets and challenges for the competitiveness and integrity of the EU's financial system. The report explores the impact of the emergence of digital assets on the financial services sector and what that means for the regulatory framework. It discusses several ongoing risks in the digital assets sector, including, from a macro prudential standpoint, the need to strengthen data capabilities to better assess financial risks and the interconnectedness of digital assets with the broader financial system. The report also notes the role cryptoassets play in circumventing anti money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism requirements and sanctions.

It includes a motion for a European Parliament resolution which, amongst other things, calls on the various European authorities to strengthen the supervisory dialogue on significant multi-function groups (MFGs) and underlines the need to align the MiCAR policy framework for significant non-bank MFGs. It calls on the European Commission to come forward with a legislative proposal urgently to provide legal certainty on stablecoin multi issuance, and to provide strong prudential safeguards, robust cooperation arrangements, and enhanced crisis management protocols. It also stresses that interoperability is crucial in digital finance, and that legal entity identifier/verifiable legal entity identifier-type approaches should be assessed as infrastructure-grade tools. The EU's dependence on non-EU service providers for DLT infrastructure is also flagged as a matter of 'regret'.

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