European Union commits to pension and cryptocurrency reforms within the year

The European Union has set a year-end target for further steps to boost pension investment and streamline trading by the end of the year in an effort to inject momentum into the revival of Europe's capital markets. Albuquerque, the European Union's financial services commissioner, unveiled plans on Thursday. She also announced that the European Union Commission was considering giving direct supervisory powers to its top market regulator in Paris, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). She said that as supervisory powers shifted to ESMA, the European Union Commission would consider the feasibility of centralising supervision of certain market infrastructures, such as central counterparties, central securities depositories and trading venues. She added that emerging sectors such as crypto asset service providers would also benefit from more centralized regulation, stressing that the move would not diminish the role of national regulators.