According to the Commission, the costs and risks of cross-border securities transactions are too high compared to national securities transactions, the access of market actors – among them trade venues, central counterparties and central securities depositories – is limited and the competition between central securities depositories insufficient. The Commission wishes to address these deficits by measures to increase the safety of securities transactions and to open national securities markets. 

The Green Paper serves for the Commission as a basis for discussion. It wishes to find out what exactly shadow banking entities are, which activities they exercise and which benefits and risks are related to them as well as what a future regulation of shadow banking could look like. 

The Commission aims to implement a fully integrated payment market in the EU. In its Green Paper, the Commission presents action plans for the market integration.

The Commission wishes to boost competition on the audit market by the obligation to change auditors regularly (“rotation rule”). A prohibition of non-audit services (e.g. tax advice) is to strengthen the independence of auditors. 

The Commission wishes to improve the transparency of financial market transactions, move derivatives trading to organised trading venues and strengthen supervision and competition. Moreover, it intends to strengthen investor protection. 

The Commission wishes to improve the transparency of financial market transactions, move derivatives trading to organised trading venues and strengthen supervision and competition. Moreover, it intends to strengthen investor protection. 

The wishes to limit the term of the contracts entered into by credit rating agencies and issuers as well as the participation volume in credit rating agencies in order to strengthen the independence of credit rating agencies. In future, structured finance instruments will be subjected to ratings by at least two credit rating agencies. Moreover, the Commission wishes to prescribe civil liability for credit rating agencies. 

The Commission proposes to introduce EU-wide minimum rules regarding criminal sanctions for insider dealing and market manipulation. It wishes to harmonise the offences yet not the levels of penalties. To date, there are only administrative sanctions. The Commission’s aim is to increase the deterrent effect of national sanctions. 

The tax is to apply to transactions with financial instruments, both in the organised markets and over-the-counter trading. It is to generate revenues for the public purse and to increase the stability of financial markets. The Commission expects EU-wide tax revenues of roughly 57 billion Euros a year. They are to flow wholly or partly into the EU budget through an own resources system of the European Union.

Additional own funds buffers are to strengthen the banking sector’s resistance to losses and to smooth credit lending to economic cycles. The introduction of a binding leverage ratio and stricter liquidity requirements is to be examined. Infringements of rules are to be subjected to EU-wide sanctions.