About us - Florence School of Banking and Finance

Focus and activities of the School

Established in January 2016 as part of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, the Florence School of Banking & Finance is a European platform bringing together practitioners and academics from the Banking and Finance sector to develop a common culture of regulation and supervision in the European Union.
It does so through training and policy dialogue, in close interaction with its network of leading academic institutions. Together with its partners, the school helps experts and decision-makers to take informed decisions in the medium and long-term, critically accompanying the economically and socially sound functioning of the European banking sector.

The School’s objectives are:

to provide a European forum for independent and critical thought and informed debate by bringing together scholars with the world of practice;
to support professionals in keeping up-to-date with European developments in this swiftly evolving field;
to provide access to academically robust and praxis-relevant knowledge from a multidisciplinary perspective.

The school’s focus is on four substantive areas, namely, Statistical and Econometric Methods; Risk Management; Financial Stability and Macroprudential Policy; Regulation, Supervision and Resolution. In these critical areas, the Florence School of Banking & Finance undertakes two core activities:

1. Policy dialogue

The Florence School of Banking and Finance hosts policy dialogue activities which aim at stirring a critical and thoughtful debate on the logic, soundness and implications of the European regulatory framework. The School’s thematic emphasis lies on financial stability and macro-prudential policy on the one hand and on banking regulation, supervision and resolution on the other.

Our policy-focused activities range from closed-door executive seminars, held under the Chatham House Rule, to public conferences and online seminars. Our events are organised in cooperation with our scientific and institutional partners and involve senior practitioners, scholars and policy-makers.READ MORE ABOUT THE POLICY DEBATE ACTIVITIES

2. Training activities

Our training activities provide a bridge between the latest academic thinking and the world of practice on various levels, in its four substantive areas. The formats of the courses organised by the Florence School of Banking and Finance include residential courses, online training, and tailor-made courses, either at the premises of the requesting institution (in-house) or in Florence (ad-hoc).READ MORE ABOUT THE TRAINING ACTIVITIES

Target audience

The Florence School of Banking & Finance targets professionals working in the Banking & Finance sector, including bankers, national competent authorities, European institutions, the European Central Bank (ECB) and academics who are interested in the European dimension of financial regulation and supervision.

The school also builds on the knowledge and activities of the Pierre Werner Chair on Monetary Union and the Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa Chair in European Economic and Monetary Integration.

Background

In light of the failures in supervision exposed by the financial crisis, President Barroso requested a group of experts, chaired by Mr. Jacques de Larosière, to make proposals to strengthen European supervisory arrangements, with the objective of establishing a more efficient, integrated and sustainable European system of supervision.

The Commission brought forward proposals to replace the EU’s existing supervisory architecture with a European system of financial supervisors (ESFS), consisting of three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs): a European Banking Authority (EBA), a European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and a European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA). The three ESAs and a European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) were established as from January 2011 to replace the previous supervisory committees.

In order to put into action the conclusion of the European Council and Euro Area summit at the end of June 2012, on 12 September 2012 the Commission adopted a set of legislative proposals which led to the creation of the Banking Union composed of a Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and a Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM). The decision to establish the Banking Union is one of the most significant European decisions in the last thirty years.

A new supervisory and resolution architecture, which is effectively multileveled, but governed from the EU level, is being put in place. The design and implementation of the new system place significant demands on the ESAs, the SSM, the SRM, the national supervisory and resolution authorities, the ECB and the European Commission (the Institutional Bodies) and the financial sector in addition to wider systems of governance and accountability.

Agreement on a legal framework is only the beginning of a process that requires institution-building, capacity-building and the development of a coherent European strategy and approach. This is being done in a compressed timeframe. Multileveled systems of regulation and supervision raise complex challenges of coordination, information exchange and consistency across a financial system of considerable heterogeneity. In translating the blueprint from design into day-to-day practice, unforeseen issues will arise and, as the new system unfolds, a considerable amount of learning will be required in order to create in the European Union a “common culture” in Banking and Finance. For credit institutions, there is the need to understand and meet the requirements of a new and unknown supervisory and regulatory system.

To respond to these needs the European University Institute established the Florence School of Banking & Finance to bring together the various constituencies of academics, supervisors, regulators, policy makers, and private stakeholders. The Florence School of Banking & Finance is a truly European forum, built to analyse and discuss the analytical foundation of the new landscape of financial regulation and supervision at the European and national level, and to thus support the development of a common culture of regulation and supervision in the Banking & Finance Sector. While regulation and the new supervisory scheme are the main focus of the School, the constitutional framework, integration and politics at large will form an integral part of the School’s activities.