The Financial Supervisory Authority ("FI") has published the priority areas for supervision in 2024.
Each year, the FI publishes specific focus areas for supervision by the Inspectorate during the year. The areas selected are the areas in which the FI identifies the greatest risks in the financial market. This year, the FI has announced that the focus areas will consist of how the financial sector copes with a changed economic environment with higher interest rates and lower growth, whether the financial sector is able to deliver socially important services in an uncertain surrounding environment, whether financial entities are doing what they should be doing to protect themselves from being used for criminal purposes and whether consumers are offered the right services in the financial market and whether those services are of good quality.
The FI announced that its supervision methods will include keeping track of how financial entities monitor and manage credit risks, checking the resilience and risks associated with outsourcing at financial operators and actions by financial operators to counteract money laundering, terrorist financing and fraud and checking that consumers are offered suitable products and services that are not associated with unnecessary costs. The FI will also continue to review the risk of greenwashing and other sustainability-related risks in the financial markets.
The fact that the FI has chosen to focus on certain areas during the year does not mean that all other supervisory activities will cease. It will continue to be important for all operators supervised by the FI to focus on regulatory compliance and management of risks in their operations – including those that do not fall within the FI's prioritised areas.
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