On October 17, 2016, the European Commission published a report documenting the meeting of the Commission’s Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Advisory Group on September 6, 2016.

Financial services are considered at section 4 of the report in the context of TTIP. The group notes that the EU tabled its offer on financial services market access in July 2016 (see Legal update, European Commission releases EU financial services offer for 14th round of TTIP negotiations: July 2016) . Discussions relating to this offer will continue during the next round of TTIP negotiations in October 2016.

The report also refers to the new joint EU-U.S. Financial Regulatory Forum, which was launched in July 2016 with the aim of making continued efforts to improve EU-U.S. regulatory coherence (see Legal update, EU and US establish joint financial regulatory forum ). The EU would like to see the work of the forum “linked into” the final TTIP agreement because, for the EU, the real issue for the financial services sector in the transatlantic context is regulatory transparency and cooperation. Diverging regulation may have negative implications on trade in financial services, financial stability, and consumer protection.

At the meeting, the group also discussed transparency (members expressed an interest in seeing documents related to financial services regulatory cooperation), domestic and international legislation (neither the U.S. nor the EU is seeking, through the forum, to revise the other’s legislation), the TTIP market access offer in financial services (prudential measures, such as capital requirements for banks, are not covered as these are out of scope) and measures to help consumers navigate transatlantic financial services (such as reduced charges for international transfers and simpler opening of bank accounts).