The objectives of the UK-German Financial Services Dialogue are to share practitioners’ knowledge of the factors affecting the competitiveness of financial and related professional services and to engage with policymakers and regulators at supra-national, EU and national levels on issues affecting the competitiveness of the industry. The Dialogue is co-chaired by Gerhard Wiesheu, President, Frankfurt Main Finance, and Katharine Braddick, Group Head of Strategic Policy, Barclays. The groups convenes twice per year alternating between the UK and Germany.
The Dialogue was launched in June 2015 and has identified the following areas of priority:
- The cumulative impact of legislation: The Dialogue has welcomed the approach taken by the Commission in its call for evidence and the proposal for a Capital Markets Union (CMU) to develop and integrate European capital markets and diversify finance across the EU. The Dialogue will explore how it can support this agenda, drawing on the expertise of its cross-sectoral membership.
- FinTech: While both the UK and Germany are FinTech hubs in their own right, have attracted substantial investment in this area and both the FCA and BaFin have made FinTech a priority, in aggregate the US remains stronger. Europe needs strong FinTech centres to compete with Hong Kong, Singapore and New York. The Anglo-German Financial Dialogues will develop a FinTech strategy looking at:
- The digital consumer: how can customers be served better;
- Digital enterprise: enabling organisations to be more efficient, better alignment of products + customer needs; and
- Digital disruption: development of new products.
The secretariat for this dialogue is provided by TheCityUK.