Supervisory data collection

What the EU is doing and why

Supervision of the EU financial system relies on data that is timely, relevant and of high quality. The volume and complexity of the data required to oversee the financial system have grown substantially over the last decade. In parallel, there has been a rapid evolution of digital technologies to collect and analyse such data. EU supervisory reporting rules, and the way authorities collect and use data needs to keep pace with these developments.

In this context, the Commission carried out a comprehensive fitness check of supervisory reporting requirements in EU financial services legislation. The fitness check concluded that, overall, supervisory reporting in EU financial services is necessary and effective. However, it also showed that the current way of defining the reporting requirements and collecting data can be complex and lead to inefficiencies in the reporting process. There are some redundancies and inconsistencies in the requirements and cases where companies have to report very similar data to several authorities in parallel. Additional national reporting and ad hoc data requests by supervisors add to the complexities. Moreover, EU supervisory reporting requirements do not adequately reflect recent technological developments and are not well suited to the use of modern IT tools. All this can be costly and burdensome for companies and results in data that is of lower quality and therefore less useful to the supervisory authorities.

The fitness check identified five main areas for improvement: the legislative process and instruments, governance, data needs and uses, data consistency and harmonisation, and technology. In order to address the shortcomings identified in the fitness check and to enable supervisory authorities to seize the opportunities of data-driven supervision, the Commission adopted the strategy on supervisory data in EU financial services on 15 December 2021.

The Commission’s long-term vision on supervisory data in EU financial services focuses on four building blocks

1. increased consistency and standardisation of data
2. better data sharing among authorities
3. an improved process for developing and adopting reporting requirements
4. joint governance

Delivering these essential building blocks will enable a more effective and efficient use of modern technologies.