An update sweep by Nordea’s Jarkko Syyrilä, on trends in EU regulation relating to fund administration, started the second day of the PostTrade 360 Helsinki on Thursday morning. An agreed 1 percent cap on pension funds for individuals is opening further questions among financial services actors.

“There is now a precedent that we can have a fee cap in European regulation, said Jarkko Syyrilä, who is head of public affairs with Nordea Asset and Wealth Management as well as vice president of European industry association EFAMA.

“There is still discussion on what should be included in the cap. Should it include distribution costs, for example? It probably will, so it is quite a tight limit.”

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He added that this is leading to some further worries to many in the financial services landscape.

Sustainability is not empty talk anymore

Jarkko Syyrilä’s keynote at PostTrade 360 Helsinki was labelled “Key regulatory challenges for the buy side from 2019 onwards”. He put strong emphasis on the need to be prepared for ever-stricter rules on environmental and social sustainability.

The area has historically been difficult to regulate because there has been a lack of definition of what is green, for example. But the work on a ”taxonomy” is progressing, to make clear what is what and pave the way for regulation which could come to have much stronger impact than many realise today.

“In my mind, sustainability will the biggest issue as we go forward,” said Jarkko Syyrilä. “Believe it or not, EU wants to be in the lead on sustainable finance, and export it to other continents.”

Data could be gold

He added that the political pressure is now hard, with the European Parliament seeking to go further

“What I want to convey is that sustainability risks will have to be considered in all your operations.”

For the post-trade industry it could open new business opportunities for information providers.

“Having all the data on how green companies are in all parts of their activities could be become a goldmine.”

PostTrade 360 Helsinki is taking place on 30–31 October, at Pörssitalo. The agenda can be found here, and our editorial coverage will be gathered here.