As announced during the 6th ECN Crowdfunding Convention, the European Commission (EC) intends to put forward, during the first quarter of 2018, a proposal to regulate crowdfunding and P2P lending in Europe.
In the meantime, the EC has launched an Inception Impact Assessment to help understand the potential impact of different policy directions currently under consideration to tackle the problems related to cross-border investing and to provide an effective risk management framework. The EC evaluates, in particular, four policy options:
Option 1: Baseline scenario – no EU framework
Option 2: Building on reputational capital – a self-regulatory approach with minimum EU standards
Option 3: A comprehensive EU approach – treating crowdfunding platforms like regulated trading venues or payment institutions
Option 4: The cross-border solution – a standalone opt-in EU framework.
The Impact Assessment summarises the Commission’s understanding of the phenomenon and its problems, gathered through various researches commissioned to different organizations, including ECN, which has conducted, with its partners, studies on Crowdfunding for Research and Innovation and on Obstacles to cross-border investing.
“ECN has been working since 2012 with European Commission, to support them in understanding crowdfunding – especially in this context P2P Finance and Securities-based finance – and its problems. ECN is looking forward to the final legislative proposal that the EC will release early next year and will continue to provide the EC with access to market information”, says Oliver Gajda, Executive Officer of ECN.
The feedback is period is open until the 27th of November. Once all feedback is collected the Commission will proceed in putting together a final proposal that will include one of these options, together with other more detailed policy actions.
ECN invites all its members, partners and relevant stakeholders to participate and give their opinion on the Inception Impact Assessment. ECN is working on a statement with its board of directors and members that will also be submitted and welcomes input from its stakeholders.
