The 17th edition of the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) Supervisory Conference focuses on the future of the European financial system in an environment marked by geopolitical tensions, technological change, and structural disruption. European’s premier supervisors, central bankers, and top managers from Austria’s financial industry are discussing these key issues for the domestic and European financial markets as well as their regulators and supervisors in front of around 700 participants at the Vienna Congress and Convention Center at the conference on “Europe’s Financial Future: Sovereignty and Resilience”.
The key discussion topic is how Europe can strengthen its economic and financial ability to act, by also further developing its openness, competitiveness and innovative strength. Resilience and strategic authority are key requirements for a successful European financial market. Effective supervision plays a key role towards maintaining stability, strengthening confidence, and guaranteeing a level playing field.
“Resilience and competitiveness are not extreme opposites. On the contrary, one necessitates the other”, commented FMA Executive Director, Mariana Kühnel. “Europe needs strong and resilient financial markets to be able to finance innovation, infrastructure, digital transformation, and growth. At the same time, we need a broader vision of resilience than in the past: a vision that doesn’t just consist of capital and liquidity, but also cyber-resilience, the technological capacity to act, and handling of geopolitical risks.
Europe’s key challenge is not due to excessive regulation, but too little European integration: in the form of the continuing fragmentation of its financial markets. While European banks are now well capitalised, profitable and significantly more resilient than prior to the Global Financial Crisis national barriers, different frameworks and incomplete steps towards integration continue to hinder the banking union and the single market from being able to show their full potential.
Helmut Ettl, FMA Executive Director, emphasised the significance of European integration: “Europe will master the challenges ahead in the coming years by becoming stronger rather than becoming weaker. It will do so by increased confidence, cooperation and strong institutions. The completion of the banking union, stronger integration of the capital markets and removing the remaining fragmentation, are key conditions for Europe’s resilience and competitiveness, rather than technical details.”
The conference addresses Europe’s role in the global financial system, digital transformation and innovation, the future of Europe’s banking union as well as effective supervision and enforcement. The topics under discussion include the further development of the Savings and Investments Union, the completion of the Banking Union, the impact of digital transformation and artificial intelligence on the financial sector, as well as the significance of supervision and legal enforcement for confidence and financial market stability.
The State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Barbara Eibinger-Miedl, the Chairperson of the European Banking Authority (EBA), François-Louis Michaud and the Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Martin Kocher will deliver keynote addresses.
Other international speakers alongside Michaud are Claudia Buch, Chair of the SSM, Frank Elderson, Member of the ECB’s Executive Board, Sharon Donnery, Member of the Supervisory Board (ECB representative), Rikke-Louise Ørum Petersen, AMLA Executive Board Member, and Karen Braun-Munzinger, Board Member of the Single Resolution Board. The Chair of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), Jacek Jastrzębski, and the respective Governors of the central banks of Croatia and Montenegro, Ante Žigman and Irena Radović, provide additional international supervisory perspectives.
Peter Bosek (Erste Group), Michael Höllerer (Raiffeisen Bank International), Andreas Brandstetter (UNIQA), Enver Siručić (BAWAG), Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad (Bitpanda), Annalisa Usardi (Amundi) and Gernot Mittendorfer (Trade Republic) will be discussants from the financial industry. Inputs from academia will be provided by Professor Susanne Kalss (Vienna University of Economics and Business), and by policy expert Nicolas Véron (Bruegel and Peterson Institute for International Economics).
The FMA Supervisory Conference has established itself in recent years as a leading platform for exchange between supervisors, politics, academia and the financial economy, and is one of the most important events of its kind in the German-speaking world.
It will be Helmut Ettl’s final Supervisory Conference as FMA Executive Director, as he will stand down after over 18 years, to take up the position of Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC on 1st November 2026. Oliver Schütz has been appointed as his successor alongside Executive Director Mariana Kühnel. Oliver Schütz is currently the Managing Director for Banking Resolution at the FMA.
Journalists may address further enquiries to
Boris Gröndahl (FMA Media Spokesperson)
Telephone: +43/(1)249/59-6010
Mobile: +43 676 8824 9995
E-Mail: [email protected]