Introduction
The role of the capital markets is key for the allocation of financial resources through the modern economies and therefore to enable a stronger growth and the long term development of the European economies.
Over the last few years, and namely after the world financial crisis after 2007 (that deeply affected the banking system in many countries), the authorities in Europe have put the capital markets efficiency at the center of their priorities, especially with the launch and implementation of the Capital Markets Union (CMU), a priority within the agenda of the EU Commission.
For years EFFAS has been involved in capital markets subjects, namely through its European Bond Commission, acting on the communication of the major needs of professionals in these areas, in promoting brainstorming regarding the issues and also in developing strandards in areas such as indices, performance measurement, etc.
Within this recent environment, the EFFAS EMC promoted also the EFFAS' 1st European Working Paper, on the subject of "The Non-Bank Financing of European Companies", that has been completed last year by Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL) with EFFAS sponsorship and has already been successfully presented last May in Lisbon.
As such, the EFFAS Capital Markets Commission (CMC) is stablished with the following Mission Statement:
- Promoting the role and visibility of EFFAS at the European and international level concerning capital markets issues
- Monitoring the situation and the evolution of capital markets in Europe, specially the path towards CMU
- Advising the EMC in consultation requests made by the European authorities or in providing advice to those authorities whenever requested
- Proposing to the EMC the organization of regular events about these subjects
- Promoting discussions and brainstorming amongst the NMS about these issues or gathering and putting together the professionals' views regarding the priorities for the development of CMU and of capital markets in general
The composition of members of the CMC should combine experienced professionals and prestigious academics in capital markets areas, as such trying to achieve the best possible functioning of the Commission and the optimization of its role within EFFAS strategy". As in all other commissions the participation is on honorary basis and travel expenses are not supported by EFFAS, therefore most of the activity will be done electronically and via conference call.