Summary
Professor Van Hulle began his talk with his understanding of the Solvency II regime and gave an introduction to Omnibus II contents. He explained the difficulties of implementing new regulatory rules and pointed out the major issues of Omnibus II, such as Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS), Long-term Guarantees, or third-country-equivalence.
Despite the present uncertain market conditions, Professor van Hulle emphasized the importance of implementing the stricter but more harmonized new solvency regime. He pointed out two essential aspects which are required to accomplish this task:
Firstly, the reporting system of Solvency II needs to be improved, which requires a comprehensive database from the industry. And secondly, transitional provisions of Solvency II should be clarified in detail with the assistance of EIOPA.
In the subsequent discussion, Professor van Hulle endorsed the idea of developing the solvency regulatory framework for pension funds. He emphasized the importance of risk-based regulatory regimes for pension funds, especially in countries like the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.