The future of the euro area: reconstruction and recovery

Europe has shown huge resilience in overcoming energy shocks from reduced Russian supply, yet prices are expected to remain high and coordinated efforts to diversify energy supply are still required. On top of this, there is expectation of a lower growth outlook, with shocks to the banking system from Credit Suisse being absorbed by UBS.

Europe therefore has to deal with a multitude of issues including inflation, price instability and recovery from the energy crisis. There are key questions around central bank strategies, practices and toolkits for stimulating growth, as well as the reconstruction efforts of supply chains and agricultural systems, particularly in Ukraine.

OMFIF is convening a series of expert panels with key policy-makers, regulators and public and private sector investors to discuss these questions and Europe’s future.

Speakers:

• Maija Celmina, Cabinet of the Executive Vice-President, European Commission
• Emiliano González Mota, Director of the Operations Department, Banco de Espana
• Artem Shevalev, Alternate Board Director, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
• Julie Teigland, EY EMEIA Area Managing Partner, EY
• Barnabas Virag, Deputy Governor, Magyar Nemzeti Bank

Register your interest in attending this seminar here.

What can public finance management teach the green bond market?

Though generally treated as separate, the qualities of good management of public spending – transparency, efficiency, high quality impact assessment – have much in common with the qualities encouraged in sustainable finance. Editor of the Digital Monetary Institute Lewis McLellan is joined by Eila Kreivi, European Investment Bank’s chief sustainable finance adviser, Alex Caridia, RBC’s head of public sector markets, and Mark MacDonald, EY’s global lead for public finance management, to discuss the similarities between the two areas and how technological developments are impacting both.

Ensuring impactful fund disbursements for efficient public good

Public finance management systems are a means of delivering development outcomes through a governance system, so assuring that fund disbursements are impactful is crucial. The inability of current systems to accurately measure and track key indicators creates operational challenges and overcoming them is critical in facilitating effectual public good. Representatives from USAID and EY join OMFIF to discuss some of the challenges unfolding in aid projects and how they can be resolved.

NGEU recovery, resilience and fund disbursement

As a combination of macroeconomic shocks and structural issues impact European growth and drive inflation, this two-part seminar will discuss the policy responses to economic challenges. This includes most notably the largest stimulus package ever financed in Europe, Next Generation EU.

However, central budgetary authorities have a limited capacity to oversee how their disbursements are used and face mounting regulatory and reporting requirements. How can public institutions simplify procedures, boost capacity and ensure the effective implementation and monitoring of their investments?

This OMFIF seminar looks at solutions that aim to increase transparency, traceability and effectiveness between the European Commission, ministries, treasuries and investors within the NGEU process.

Speakers:

• Giovanni Callegari, Head of Economic Risk Analysis, European Stability Mechanism
• Alessandro Cenderello, Managing Partner for EU institutions, EY
• Piero Cipollone, Deputy Governor, Banca d’Italia
  
• Declan Costello, Deputy Director General for Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission
• Erik Jones, Director, European University Institute Florence
  
• Mark MacDonald, Global Public Finance Management Leader, EY
  
• Stefan Nanu, Head of Public Debt Management & State Treasury, Ministry of Public Finance Romania
• Pier Carlo Padoan, Chairman, UniCredit

Register your interest in attending this seminar here.

Blockchain and the future of ESG investing

The environmental, social and governance finance movement has been perhaps the single most important new development in capital markets over the last 10 years. Blockchain, if it fulfils its promise, may be the most important development of the next 10. OMFIF, in collaboration with EY, convenes a roundtable to discuss the application of blockchain technology to the green and social bond markets. As regulatory pressures mount on investors to disclose the environmental impact of their portfolios, that pressure is transferred to issuers via excess demand for ESG-labelled products. In response, issuers must develop the capacity to track the way their money is spent.

This roundtable examines these forces, highlighting the difficulties issuers face in providing investors with accurate use-of-proceeds data and the challenges that investors face in aggregating data from a range of issuers in a variety of formats. It also discusses the impact a blockchain-based finance management architecture might have on solving these problems.

Blockchain for public finance management

The management of public finances is beset by problems of inefficiency and a lack of transparency. Governments struggle to keep track of how their funds are spent. They are forced to expend substantial resources in tracking and reporting their payments and obligations. OMFIF, in collaboration with EY, launch a report to study the degree to which digital improvements to the systems underpinning these functions, perhaps employing blockchain, could improve operational efficiency, oversight and analysis of how best to deploy resources.

One area where this technology could swiftly yield benefits is in ESG capital markets. Investors are increasingly under regulatory pressure to disclose the impact of their portfolios. Accordingly, the demand for bond issuers to report on the way the proceeds of their bonds are spent has also increased. Giving green bond issuers the opportunity to trace funds they disburse more effectively and collect better data on how the money is used could be an immensely valuable innovation.

The full panel discussion at the live launch can be viewed here.

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