The recent ISLA Milan Briefing brought together policymakers, asset managers, banks and market infrastructure providers to take stock of where Italy and Europe’s capital market stands and what’s needed to unlock growth, capital and innovation.
Key takeaways included:
📍Italy is Emerging as Europe’s Stability Anchor & Policy Influencer: Against a backdrop of political turnover elsewhere, Italy’s longer-serving government and stronger coalitions in Brussels are offering real agenda-setting power. Market flows are starting to reflect this, with a BTP outperformance and strong appetite for Italian sovereign and corporate debt.
📍Engagement is Key as Regulatory Change Accelerates: The EU’s vast Market Integration and Supervision Package (MISP) spans asset management, reporting, settlement, collateral and digital assets. Now is the time for firms to get involved in the conversations, or risk having the rules written in isolation.
📍Fragmentation Continues to Impact Europe’s Competitiveness: Despite two decades of regulation, consolidation is no longer enough: Europe needs contestability. Supporting competition across borders on a level playing field can lower costs, drive innovation and help channel the region’s vast savings into capital markets.
📍DLT & AI Need a Harmonised Foundation: Tokenisation and DLT can transform collateral management and settlement, and AI can deliver immediate operational gains. However, without a common legal and regulatory framework, these technologies risk digitising existing fragmentation rather than overcoming it.
📍Shifting Perceptions to Unlock Europe’s Savings: Europe has huge pools of retail and private wealth. Channelling this into capital markets requires four priorities: regulatory harmonisation, more efficient post-trade infrastructure, legal certainty and education to shift the perception of securities lending to a core market infrastructure that improves returns, liquidity and market efficiency.
Following an insightful afternoon, we welcomed guests to a ISLA Connects networking evening, sponsored by Euronext.
Thank you to our hosts, BNY and partners ASSIOM FOREX, and Euronext for their support in hosting this timely event, as well as all our speakers and delegates for contributing to the discussion.
