Will Frankfurt get an anti-money laundering authority?

As part of the efforts to make Frankfurt a more important financial center after Brexit, the German government is also committed to locating Euroclear in Frankfurt. Scholz rejected criticism of Berlin for its lack of support for the financial center. Judging by Frankfurt’s rating in an international comparison of financial markets, much has been done in recent years and the location has been strengthened. And it will continue to do so,” he promised.

Scholz considered the banking union and the capital market union to be crucial for the competitiveness of the European banking sector, but also for Europe as a region. This was a high priority for financial policy, he said. “It is a central issue for European sovereignty that we make it possible for banks to look at Europe as a whole,” he said. “This is of the utmost economic importance.”

Germany in particular – as a strong banking location, must ensure that the opportunities associated with the banking union and the capital markets union are also exploited, he said. That is why we are discussing very intensively and very hard with our European partners how we can finally get things moving.

Scholz opposed reducing the banking union to joint liability in deposit insurance. There is much more to it, he said. Today, he said, the landscape is fragmented. Above all, banks must be given the opportunity to develop Europe as a “scale” and to look at it as a whole. Companies are also considering repositioning themselves through pan-European bank mergers, for example. “Our task is to create the framework for a successful financial industry across Europe,” he said. Merging banks in Europe, even across borders, is a purely private-sector decision, he said. He attributed the painstaking progress to major reservations in individual EU countries about standardizing the regulatory framework, such as a common insolvency regime, the handling of sovereign bonds in bank balance sheets and supervisory issues.

Financial market tax at the start

Scholz was convinced that the introduction of a financial transaction tax would succeed after all, despite years of futile efforts. The tax is intended to be one of the sources from which the EU debts incurred in the corona crisis will later be repaid. The EU Commission will soon present a proposal on the financial transaction tax, said Scholz.