1 September 2023 - Summary of minutes

1. Opening remarks
   
   • The Bank of Finland welcomes the participants and defines the objective of the meeting as making the participants acquainted with each other, agreeing on the group's working practices and communication as well reviewing current IReF issues.
2. Introduction round
   
   • Participants to the meeting:
     • Officials of the Bank of Finland (BoF) and Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA)
     • Industry representatives from OP Financial Group, ALM Partners, the Savings Banks Group, Nordea and Finance Finland
3. The group's working practices and communication
   
   • The small group agrees on technical solutions used by the group in its work, taking data security into account
   • The small group agrees on other working practices, such as meeting times and frequency
     
     • The group decides to meet as a rule on a monthly basis, in the second half of the month
   • The anticipates that the group will be active for 1.5-2 years, until the planned finalisation date of the IReF Regulation
   • The small group discusses the cost-benefit assessment (CBA) of the IReF
     
     • An industry representative notes the ECB has communicated that fewer responses were received from small banks than from large ones
     • The BoF replies that responses from large banks are weighted in the CBA, reducing the incentive for small banks to respond to the survey, on which which the CBA is based
   • It is noted that the Chair of the small group from the BoF is able to communicate ideas into IReF preparations through the ECB's WG IRDD (Working Group on Integrated Reporting and Data Dictionary)
   • The BoF states that the Bank of Finland's website will have a dedicated page for the IReF, which will also contain information of the work of the small group. It is agreed that summaries of the minutes of the meetings will be shared on the website, including information on organisations that participated in the meetings
   • The BoF states it will arrange a specific open IReF info session from this autumn onwards, in addition to other reporter info events
4. Current IReF topics
   
   • BoF provides a general briefing on the organisation of IReF-related work and preparations. Typically, the ECB's IReF programme office prepares issues to be discussed within the WG-IRDD, either in meetings or in writing. Progress of the programme is supervised by a specific steering group that reports to the ECB's STC (Statistics Committee). The highest decision-making body is the Governing Council of the ECB, supported by the High-Level Task Force (HLTF) established for this purpose. The BoF is represented in each of these bodies.
   • The BoF presents the timeline of the IReF initiative. Currently, IReF-related work within the ECB focuses on the collection and analysis of the last CBA responses, and the results will be published by the end of this year.
   • The BoF predicts that the IReF's technological solutions will change to the effect that reports will be submitted elsewhere than the Bank of Finland, to some sort of centralised pan-European system. Nevertheless, the Bank of Finland will continue to cooperate with reporting entities in technical questions related to other topics than report submission.
   • The BoF will provide further insights from a supplementary CBA currently underway on cost-benefit aspects of special interest to the industry representatives