It remains one of the major supervisory challenges in 2017. Indeed, the overall stock of NPLs in the euro area is relatively high compared with other geographies, albeit with significant heterogeneity. Some Member States experienced a rapid surge in the NPL ratio subsequent to a burst of a real estate bubble. In other Member States, the increase occurred later and was widespread across sectors.
Based on this, our experience is that fintech firms may often not be in the direct regulatory purview of authorities, and may therefore have less formalised and less frequent meetings with regulators. The first possible structural challenge, then, is access to regulators. This is an important challenge to resolve.