Calendar

Course dates: 02 – 18 September 2020
Place: Online
Course Director: Philipp Paech (London School of Economics); Senior experts from the public sector
Instructors: Klaus Löber (European Central Bank), Elisabeth Noble (European Banking Authority); Senior experts and interviewees from the public and private sector tba
Area: Regulation, Supervision and Resolution
Level: Introductory/Intermediate
Target: EU Officials (ECB, SSM, SRB, ESRB, EBA, ESM), National Supervisory Authorities, Economists and Risk Managers in financial institutions and private banks, Lawyers and Accountants, Ph.D. Students, Post-Graduate Researchers, Assistant Professors.
More information and registrationsSovereign Debt in the European Union
Tuesday, 8 September 2020, 15.00-18.00 CEST
Webinar part of Distributed Interdisciplinary Sovereign Debt Research and Management Conference — D-DebtCon
Organised by:

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing havoc in an already fragile global economy. While its full impact in terms of capital flows and debt levels is yet unknown, unprecedented government interventions to minimize the economic impact have spiked public debt to levels unseen in the last 50 years. According to the IMF projections1 for 2020 public debt relative to GDP will increase by over 13% in the Euro Area and worldwide.
At the same time, new trends are emerging in sovereign debt markets. A number of European sovereigns have announced plans to issue green bonds in 2020, as well as other new debt instruments such as social bonds, sustainability bonds and sustainability-linked bonds. New market developments, in particular after the COVID-19 outbreak, have included floating-rate notes and index-linked bonds.
During the euro area crisis of a decade ago the EU sovereign debt markets suffered damage as never before, while the policy response involved the creation of new instruments and institutions. Today, as a response to the huge shock caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, EU leaders have agreed on a historic package for European recovery, ‘Next Generation EU’. Within this recovery package, the European Commission was mandated to raise €750bn of funds on the markets during the next two years.
Against this background, the research papers to be presented will address a number of facets of EU sovereign debt markets: their maturity structure and cost, the pace of debt crises, and the characteristics of the bank-sovereigns doom-loop. The policy panel to follow will explore the future challenges of sovereign debt in the EU, by focusing on debt sustainability at the national level, common EU borrowing and safe assets.
1IMF Fiscal Monitor, April 2020 regarding General Government Gross Debt in percent of GDP, available at https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/FM/Issues/2020/04/06/fiscal-monitor-april-2020
More informationThe Coronavirus pandemic has wrought havoc on households, businesses and the economy. Like all organisations, insurance companies and pension fund providers had to rapidly adapt and take steps to maintain business continuity and services to customers, whilst also ensuring the safety of employees. Given the scale of the pandemic, supervisors and regulators reacted swiftly to put in place measures to reduce the burden on insurance companies and pension funds so that they could concentrate on their essential operations. Risk-based capital buffers built-up with Solvency II helped insurers to withstand the initial severe market shocks experienced with the Covid-19 crisis. However, a high level of uncertainty on the magnitude of economic disruption and further dissemination of the virus threatening health of European citizens increases downside risks looking ahead. Some six months in to the crisis, there are already some early lessons to draw. From a supervisory perspective, this means reviewing the measures that were put in place and how the regulatory frameworks to set up to ensure the stability of the sectors fared in withstanding the shock. However there are also broader lessons to consider, for example how to close protection gaps and the case for pandemic insurance; what the accelerated take up of digital technology by consumers means for business models and communication; and, most importantly, the role of the insurance and pensions in underpinning Europe’s recovery. The crisis may be far from over, but it is not too early to starting thinking about the post-pandemic world.
Moderator
Elena Carletti (Bocconi University and Florence School of Banking and Finance, European University Institute)
Speaker
Gabriel Bernardino , (Chairman of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority – EIOPA)
Commentators
Roel Beetsma (University of Amsterdam)
Giuseppe Corvino (Associate professor of financial markets and institutions, Bocconi University)

Technical disclaimer
The online seminar will take place on Zoom. Registered participants will receive the credentials to join the event at 10:00 AM (CET) on 16 September 2020. You can access the seminars from personal computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. To ensure an optimal experience in terms of connection speed and video quality, we suggest to attend the seminar via a device connected to a stable network connection, avoiding if possible shared wi-fi or mobile connections.Course dates: 18-29 September 2020
Place: Online
Course Instructor: Jeffrey Wooldridge (Michigan State University)
Area: Statistical and Econometric Methods
Level: Advanced
Target: EU Officials (ECB, SSM, SRB, ESRB, EBA, ESM), National Supervisory Authorities, Financial Stability officers, Economics Departments And Forecasting Departments of Central Banks, Ph.D. and Post-doctoral researchers, Research department officers of private banks.
More informationThe G20 central clearing obligation for OTC derivative markets has been implemented in the aftermath of the financial crisis to address risk contagion across the financial system. This assumes that central clearing counterparties (CCPs) have the capacity to manage this risk concentration in stressed circumstances. But what if these critical nodes were reaching their own limits? The purpose of this on-line seminar is to provide state-of-the-art insights on the mechanics, tools and policy questions that relate to the recovery and resolution of CCPs. The on-line seminar will focus on the role and importance of CCPs for financial markets by illustrating the type and magnitude of events that could lead to a resolution situation. It will also highlight the continuum between supervision and resolution but also the tension between the respective standards for CCPs and banks. Finally resolution triggers will be presented and the notion of public interest discussed. For each element, a balanced mix of regulatory and industry perspectives will be presented, thereby offering a view on the current debates in this field.
Chair
Prof. Thorsten V. Koeppl (Queen’s University)
Speakers
Prof. Ron Berndsen (Tilburg University and LCH)

Fully booked
To request inclusion in the waiting list, contact fbf@eui.eu.
Course dates: 12 October – 02 November 2020
Place: EUI Premises, Florence
Course Instructors: Anthony Charrie, Dominik Kaefer, Sean Kennedy, Lisa Quest, Jayant P Raman, Daniel Tannebaum (Oliver Wyman); Michael Levi (Cardiff University); Caroline Gardner, Endija Springe (European Banking Authority); Olena Loboiko (DG FISMA); Eleni Tsingou (Copenhagen Business School)
Area: Risk Management
Level: Intermediate
Target: SSM, EBA, SRB, National Supervisory Authorities, Financial institutions professionals, Lawyers, Ph.D. and Post-doctoral researchers.
More information and registrationsAs a result of COVID-19, Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) are on the rise in Europe and globally. The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed halted the already fragile European economy. As the latest global financial crisis confirmed it – higher levels of NPLs slowed down economic recovery and deepened recession. In this context, containing and possibly reducing NPL levels is proving to be a major challenge, both for market participants and for policy-makers. The too timid economic recovery indicators combined with the weak macroeconomic context and structural issues will no doubt put NPLs high on the policy agenda.
Against this background the purpose of this online debate is to review the lessons learned from the previous financial crisis, explore the suite of possible solutions and discuss how to better prepare for handling new NPL surges in the future.
Chair and Moderator
Elena Carletti (Bocconi University and Florence School of Banking and Finance, European University Institute)
Speakers
Nicoletta Mascher (European Stability Mechanism)



Course dates: 02-20 November 2020
Place: Online
Course Directors: Seraina Grünewald (Radboud University Nijmegen); Emiliano Tornese (European Commission); Tobias Tröger (Goethe University, Frankfurt)
Guest Speaker: Sebastiano Laviola (Single Resolution Board)
Course Instructors: Colm Brady, Paul Disveld (ECB Banking Supervision); Mario Delgado Alfaro (Ernst & Young), Anna Gardella (European Banking Authority), Lidja Schiavo (European Banking Authority), Katerina Theodossiou (Bank of Greece), More experts from private and public sector tba.
Area: Regulation, Supervision and Resolution
Level: Intermediate
Target: EU Officials (ECB, SSM, SRB, ESRB, EBA, ESM), National Supervisory Authorities, financial stability and research department of Central Banks, Ph.D. students, financial institutions in the private sector, law firms.
More informationFully booked
To request inclusion in the waiting list, contact fbf@eui.eu
Course dates: 02-06 November 2020
Place: Online
Course Instructors:José-Luis Peydró (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, CREI and Barcelona GSE); Carlo Altavilla (European Central Bank)
Area: Financial Stability and Macroprudential policy
Level: Intermediate
Target: EU Officials (ECB, SSM, SRB, ESRB, EBA, ESM), National Supervisory Authorities, Financial stability and research department of Central Banks, Ph.D. students, research department of private banks
Donwload Online Seminar Highlights
Presentation by Pablo Portugal
Presentation by Bertrand Chavasse
In order to help the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission proposed urgent amendments to the securitisation regulatory framework ahead of the review initially planned for 2022 with a view to supporting banks maintain their capacity to finance the real economy. In particular, a specific STS (‘Simple, Transparent, Standard) framework for on-balance-sheet synthetic securitisation features among the changes under discussion by co-legislators. The threefold dimension of STS securitisation, supposed to encourage the development of the securities market while allowing for a more risk-sensitive capital treatment, and soon to be extended to synthetic securitisation, has yet to deliver its full potential. As of now, transaction numbers remain rather low although one can observe a slight increase of notifications of STS securitisations to the European Securities and Markets Authorities (ESMA) over the last months (from 184 in March 2020 to 396 early November). In this context this online debate will:
- Ask whether current regulatory requirements are a barrier or an incentive for market actors;
- Discuss how to favour securitisations development and ultimately reach a single market for securitisations in Europe;
- Explore the nature of the key underlying exposures in the STS securities market;
- Reflect on the usefulness of the current regime for securitising both SME loans and Non-Performing Loans;
- Review the implications of COVID-19 on securitisation in light of the new legislative proposals.
Chair and Moderator
Jean-Jacques van Helten (Florence School of Banking and Finance, European University Institute)
Jean-Jacques van Helten is a Visiting Fellow at Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies & the Florence School of Banking and Finance, part of the European University Institute. He is formerly a Managing Director & Chief Risk Officer, EMEA for the Bank of Montreal (BMO) Financial Group and more recently Non-executive member of the Board of BMO Europe. He has worked in a range of senior executive risk and capital markets business roles in major investment banks in Europe, Australia, Asia and the UK where he has been responsible for market, liquidity & operational risks and credit risk analytics. Jean Jacques has also directed Bank recovery and resolution planning, enterprise risk management as well as the implementation of ICAAP and ILAAP and liquidity risk management process and procedures including liquidity stress testing. Jean Jacques completed his undergraduate and Master degrees along with his PhD in economics/economic history at the University of London, studied at the Goethe Universität, Frankfurt and Freie Universität, Berlin and has held academic research positions at La Trobe University and the University of London.
Speakers
Patrizia Canziani, (Structured Finance Professional)
Patrizia Canziani is a finance professional with more than twenty years’ experience in capital markets, credit and structured finance at JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Nomura and MUFG. Mrs. Canziani is Non-Executive Director and member of the Risk and related parties committee for listed company Sogefi, a world leader in design and manufacturing of car components. Experienced in sustainability, she holds a certificate in Sustainable Finance from Oxford University, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. She is also a financial crime risk consultant and bank monitor. Mrs. Canziani holds a a PhD in Economics from MIT and 14 internationally refereed publications in labour-macroeconomics, pension sustainability and fiscal rules.
Bertrand Chavasse (BNP Paribas)

Bertrand Chavasse is a finance professional with more than twenty years’ experience in risk management, credit and structured finance at BNP Paribas, Natixis and CDC Ixis Capital Market. His main areas of expertise are in the field of banking prudential regulation (Basel II, III and IV) as well as on securitisation, with a particular focus on risk transfer securitisations.
Bart Joosen (VU Amsterdam)

Bart P.M. Joosen is trained as civil law lawyer at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He obtained his (equivalent to) LL.M degree in 1987. After completion of his academic study he was appointed as lecturer in the law faculty of Tilburg University in 1987. He successfully defended his dissertation on “Transfer of undertakings in bankruptcy” at Tilburg University and was promoted to doctor in law science (PhD) in 1998. He works since 1992 in private practice particularly for financial market clients. His main areas of expertise are in the field of financial services supervision with a focus on micro-prudential supervision of banks (including in-depth Basel II/Basel III and Solvency II knowledge), insurance companies and investment firms and payment services. Besides working in private practice, he is an extraordinary professor Financial Supervision Law at the VU University in Amsterdam.
Pablo Portugal (Association for Financial Markets in Europe – AFME)

Pablo is a Managing Director in AFME’s Advocacy and Public Policy Division. His main focus is analysis and engagement across Europe on financial services policy and regulatory development. Pablo is responsible for AFME’s work on the Capital Markets Union project and advocacy in various debates covering securities markets, as well as leading cross-cutting projects. Prior to joining AFME, he was engaged with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, where he worked on financial reporting, auditing and financial sector issues. His experience includes roles in European organisations and the United Nations. Born in Peru, he holds a BSc Econ (first class) from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and a Masters Degree (with distinction) from the London School of Economics. Pablo is a member of the board of the European Capital Markets Institute.