The EU Digital Fairness Act is coming, and every financial services provider should follow it

State of the Union: banking package, gold-plating, climate insurance and digital fairness · Finance Watch on dark patterns in retail investing · The ESAs on cyber, AI and quantum · SME finance and open finance

State of the Union: Brussels starts speaking the language of business

On 16 September 2026 Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her State of the Union address to the European Parliament. The speech signals which legislation, funding and priorities Brussels will take on in the coming year. This year the language was growth, speed and appetite for risk. Five points for financial services:

1. A banking system built for growth. Von der Leyen called the work on the Savings and Investments Union (SIU) critical, but capital markets take time to develop and companies’ needs are urgent. Europe therefore needs a banking system geared to growth, not only to stability. The Commission will put forward a new Banking Package focused on simplification and tackling fragmentation. The line to remember: “We know the demand for capital is out there. But we need a greater capacity and appetite for risk.”
2. A pact against gold-plating. The Commission’s omnibus proposals are reducing the administrative burden and the simplification work continues. This time the President also turned to the member states: “simplification cannot be a one-way street.” She proposed a pact under which member states commit not to add their own requirements when transposing EU law.
3. Insurance, through the climate. After a summer of droughts, wildfires and heatwaves, von der Leyen noted that only around 25% of catastrophe losses in Europe are covered by private insurance, so national budgets far too often become the insurer of last resort. The Commission will set up a Climate Insurance Alliance, bringing insurers, investors, risk modelling specialists, public authorities and policyholders to one table to increase insurance uptake.
4. The Digital Fairness Act. The speech confirmed the proposal will come this autumn. It is a horizontal act covering all sectors and the Commission’s main consumer protection initiative of this mandate. It targets four practices: manipulative interfaces (dark patterns), addictive design, influencer marketing and unfair personalisation, including pricing based on personal data. Banks, insurers, investment firms and fintechs should be ready to review product design and marketing, from the use of finfluencers to the gamification of investment apps and personalised pricing. More on this in Article 02.
5. One Europe, One Market. The speech mentioned the political agreement on the One Europe, One Market Roadmap, which the Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed in April and called completing the single market essential. Behind the short name sits a set of pending files that directly affect financial services, with the aim of agreeing them by the end of 2027: the supplementary pensions package (the review of the IORP II Directive and the PEPP Regulation), the market integration and supervision package, the digital euro and EU Inc, a pan-European corporate form meant to make it easier for companies, fintechs included, to start and scale across borders. The Financial Data Access Regulation (FiDA) is not on the list, as I wrote in edition #40. More on that in Article 04.

The message to financial services was clear. Brussels wants faster growth and less bureaucracy. The SIU is the longer project, and until it delivers, growth has to be financed by banks willing to lend more. Regulation can steer risk appetite only partly: the banking package and the gold-plating pact should give banks and investors more room, and the rest is up to market participants themselves.

Speed does not mean Europe is giving up its values. The Digital Fairness Act and the Climate Insurance Alliance show that while looking for growth, the EU also wants to protect consumers and society. Read the speech. · The One Europe, One Market Roadmap.

Finance Watch maps dark patterns in online retail investing ahead of the Digital Fairness Act

In September 2026 Finance Watch published a study on dark patterns, addictive design and misleading influencer marketing in Europe’s online retail investment market, based on market research carried out between April and June 2026. Some of the findings:

1. Dark patterns. Giving more prominence to certain options when customers choose, hiding the full picture of costs and risks and using pre-selected or default options. Prominent “recommended” labels steer customers towards particular products, sometimes without any analysis of the customer behind them.
2. Addictive design. Some providers send push notifications on price moves that cannot be switched off, nudging clients towards impulsive trades.
3. Finfluencers. More than 54% of the finfluencer content examined was presented as education rather than advertising, although many finfluencers are paid by financial institutions. Of 59 pieces of content, only 17% communicated risk well and 58% did so poorly. Some content reaches, or even targets, minors.

Read the study.

The ESAs on cyber, AI and quantum: four points from the autumn risk update

On 23 September 2026 the European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA) published their Autumn 2026 update on risks and vulnerabilities in the EU financial system, this time as a slide deck. External dependencies, emerging technologies and private credit are the headline vulnerabilities. From the cyber and AI section:

1. Dependence on ICT providers outside the EEA. Concentrated reliance on a small number of non-EEA providers makes cyber vulnerabilities worse. It also means depending on rules written somewhere else.
2. AI makes attacks stronger and faster. Frontier AI models can find and exploit IT vulnerabilities at speed and scale. Attackers can find weak points faster than defenders can close them.
3. Insurers are exposed twice. They use the technology themselves, and they insure everyone else who uses it. More frequent and severe AI-enabled attacks could raise claims and accumulation risk. In the longer term the ESAs expect repricing, stricter underwriting and more exclusions, which could reduce the cover available.
4. Quantum. An advanced quantum computer could break some of the cryptography behind payments and databases, and data gathered today could be decrypted later (“harvest now, decrypt later”). The risk could arrive before anything useful is built with the technology. The ESAs point out that the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) already requires state-of-the-art cryptography.

The ESAs’ announcement · the slide deck.

The FCA puts open finance to work for SME lending. The EU’s FiDA is standing still

On 17 September 2026 the FCA published a feedback statement (FS26/2) on supporting access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It found no evidence that FCA regulation is a major barrier. The problems lie mostly in information, capability and complex, duplicated application processes, and they hit microbusinesses hardest. Among the next steps, open finance stands out: SME lending is one of two priority use cases for the first UK open finance scheme.

SME lending is hard where limited financial information or thin credit histories make risk difficult to assess. More complete and timely data can reduce friction, support better lending decisions and help SMEs find more suitable products. The FCA maps the benefits across the lending journey:

1. Pre-application. SMEs get a clearer and more complete picture of their own finances, helping them forecast cash flow and identify their needs and suitable products earlier.
2. Application. Less cost, friction and duplication for both SMEs and lenders.
3. Decision. Better information helps lenders make more informed decisions and allocate capital more efficiently.

The European angle. SME financing is an integral part of the SIU and of a more competitive Europe, and the EU’s Financial Data Access Regulation (FiDA) could tackle exactly this problem. It was proposed in June 2023, trilogues started in 2025 and agreement was expected by the end of that year. More than three years after the proposal, there is still no deal, and FiDA is not among the One Europe, One Market priorities. The UK is putting open finance to work for SMEs while the EU file stands still. The FCA announcement · FS26/2.