The legal-regulatory learnings from the 2023 FinTech bank failures
Virág Blazsek
The current financial stability-related regulatory frameworks in the US, the UK, and the EU are, at least in part, inadequate, as the issues these frameworks aimed to resolve - such as bank bailouts and systemic instabilities - persist to this day. This presentation focuses on the legal and regulatory lessons from the 2023 FinTech-related bank failures (Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and Credit Suisse) from a comparative and systemic stability perspective. Drawing on a comparative research methodology, supported by empirical evidence derived from the aforementioned cases, this presentation, based on ongoing research, analyses the 2023 bank failures, their root causes, regulatory responses, and the international repercussions of these events.
A Universal and Inclusive Digital Euro? Digitalising Public Money in the EU’s Social Market Economy
Christy Ann Petit
Is the EU constitutional framework equipped for the issuance of euro banknotes, coins, and digital euros alike? This discussion begins from the legal mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB) to issue a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or a ‘digital euro’ in the EU context. The currency is a vehicle for public money, whose format can evolve to fulfill the central bank’s tasks and functions. Therefore, I argue that the right to issue euro banknotes can encompass the right to determine their format or medium, including transposing them to the digital reality of the EU's economy. Moreover, the ECB Governing Council emphasised the goal of ensuring an openly accessible, electronic means of payment for retail. But what could ‘universal and inclusive’ features of the digital euro look like? This aspect involves not only ensuring the wide availability and use of the digital euro but also addressing its issuance, distribution, and settlement within the digital euro ‘scheme’.
Speakers:
Dr Virág Blazsek is Lecturer (the UK equivalent of tenure-track Assistant Professor) in Corporate, Commercial, and Banking Law and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Law and Practice in Leeds. Her primary research interests lie at the intersection of banking and finance law, financial regulation, and the legal, regulatory, and policy dimensions of bank bailouts, resolution mechanisms, financial crises, and financial stability.
Dr Christy Ann Petit is an Assistant Professor at the School of Law and Government of Dublin City University (DCU) and Deputy Director of the DCU Brexit Institute. She is the Director of the Anti-Money Laundering Academy (2025) for the FBF at the EUI. Her primary research interests lie at the intersection of EU Law, financial regulation, and economic governance.