Capital Markets Union and the fintech opportunity

Fintech has the potential to change financial intermediation structures substantially. It could disrupt existing financial intermediation with new bus

Publishing date: 15 September 2017
Authors: Guntram B. Wolff Silvia Merler Maria Demertzis

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Complementing Europe’s bank-based system with deeper capital markets and more cross-border financial integration promises benefits, but despite long-running debate and policy action, financial system change remains slow.

Fintech has the potential to change financial intermediation structures substantially. It could disrupt existing financial intermediation with new business models empowered by intelligent algorithms, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Lower costs and potentially better consumer experiences could be the driving forces.

However, empirically, fintech remains at a small scale, especially in the European Union. Even the largest fintech market, in China, is of marginal size compared to overall financial intermediation. In the EU, much of fintech is concentrated in the United Kingdom.

We argue that policymakers need to consider four questions urgently: (1) Develop a European or national fintech market? (2) What regulatory framework to pursue? (3) Should supervision of fintech be exercised at the European level? (4) What is the overall vision for the EU’s financial system? Getting the answers to these questions right at an early stage of market development would be an opportunity to shape a stable and cost-efficient financial system. In contrast, late action could mean that Europe loses out to foreign competitors and misses an opportunity to improve financial intermediation in Europe.

About the authors

Guntram B. Wolff

Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, Business Insider ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and advisory board of Elcano. He is also a fellow at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media.
Silvia Merler

Silvia Merler, an Italian citizen, is a Non-resident fellow at Bruegel and the Head of ESG and Policy Research at Algebris Investments.

She joined Bruegel as Affiliate fellow in August 2013. Her main research interests include international macro and financial economics, central banking and EU institutions and policy making.

Before joining Bruegel, she worked as Economic Analyst in DG Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission (ECFIN). There she focused on macro-financial stability as well as financial assistance and stability mechanisms, in particular on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), providing supportive analysis for the policy negotiations.
Maria Demertzis

Maria Demertzis is a Leader at ESF, The Conference Board Europe, former Senior fellow at Bruegel and part-time Professor of Economic Policy at the Florence School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute. She was Bruegel’s Deputy Director until December 2022. She has previously worked at the European Commission and the research department of the Dutch Central Bank. She has also held academic positions at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the USA and the University of Strathclyde in the UK, from where she holds a PhD in economics. She has published extensively in international academic journals and contributed regular policy inputs to both the European Commission's and the Dutch Central Bank's policy outlets. She contributes regularly to national and international press and has regular column that appears twice a month in various EU newspapers and on Bruegel’s opinion page.