The financial sector has been neglected as the European Commission has driven the development of the EU’s new regulatory framework for artificial intelligence – or so is the impression from Wednesday’s panel on the topic at the Optic conference. Santander’s Miguel Alvarez questioned that regulation of financial institutions should be technology-specific at all, seeing no advantage over making it “technology-agnostic”
In the terms of the EU’s regulatory pyramid, level 1 has already been put in place – the top-level act as such. But then, the work of determining what it should imply in practice is still coming up, over the nearest months.
In London on Wednesday, Moderator Marina Reason, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills, led the talk with
Kai Zenner, Head of Office and Digital Policy Adviser, European Parliament, and
Miguel Alvarez, Manager Public Policy, Santander.
Kai Zenner of the European Parliament argued strongly against the way the AI act has been installed on the Commission’s initiative. With the act addressing the technology broadly, the situation in the financial market was poorly accounted for. Neither the European Central Bank, nor even the financial directorate of the European Commission itself, were party to the preparation. Kai Zenner anticipated pure chaos in the early time of its being in force.
The yearly Optic conference, in London on 2–3 October 2024, is hosted by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME). Optic stands for the “Operations, post trade, technology and innovation conference”. PostTrade 360° is there, with our coverage collected here.
