Speech by Henri de Castries at the Eurofi Conference: "Retail Financial Services in Europe"

Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board

Henri de Castries, chairman of AXA's management board, gave a speech on June 7, at a conference in Brussels focusing on developments linked to a financial Europe, the "26th regime" and the key issues and outlook for financial supervision in Europe.

This two-day conference, organized by Eurofi* and Forum Europe at the European Parliament, aimed to tackle areas of concern while identifying and putting forward innovative solutions in order to meet the requirements of both end users and financial institutions.

Spotlight on the 26th regime:
The legislation and regulations governing retail financial services, and more specifically pension-related products, vary across Europe, making it extremely difficult to set up a genuine single market for financial products throughout the continent.
To overcome these obstacles, Eurofi proposes to set up under the "26th regime" - supplementing the 25 national pension legislations - new and optional European financial products covered by specific common European legislation. These new products, available under exactly the same conditions throughout the European Union, would compete against the products existing in each country. These products would therefore be competitive across the entire Union and their players would be operating on an infinitely larger market.

At the end of this major event, the appropriate conclusions and proposals that will be able to attract the vital political backing were identified.

* Eurofi, a European think-tank based in Paris, was created in 2000 and is dedicated to the creation of Europe's Single Capital Market and to accelerating the efficiency of the European Financial and Banking Services.