^aCBFA, Rue du congrès 12-14, Brussels 1000, Belgium. E-mails: michel.flamee@cbfa.be, paul.windels@cbfa.be

Abstract

During the past few years, the financial industry has been characterised by an ongoing cross-sector and cross-border consolidation of financial institutions spanning banking, securities, and insurance institutions and the blurring demarcation of their respective products and instruments. Against the backdrop of these changes, the creation of a level playing field for financial services has become a key challenge for policy makers, regulators, and market participants alike. At different national and international levels, regulators, and supervisors have been responding to this challenge with a plethora of measures. This paper presents a number of initiatives at different supervisory levels in view of recent financial sector developments and discusses how the challenge of a level playing field is being tackled.