Full Forum 2025

Vienna Initiative Full Forum 2025

Annual Full Forum Meeting of the Vienna Initiative, Brussels, 29-30September 2025

The Full Forum of the European Bank Coordination Initiative, known as the Vienna Initiative, took place on 29-30 September 2025 in Brussels to discuss the Savings and Investment Union and the central, eastern and south-eastern Europe (CESEE)

Vienna Initiative Full Forum gathers central bank governors, regulators, ministers, commercial banks, representatives of bank and non-bank financial sector and international financial institutions (IFIs)

  • European Commission hosts the Full Forum 2025 of Vienna Initiative.
  • Participants reflected on specific opportunities and challenges that the Savings and Investments Union project brings for the central, eastern, and southern-eastern European (CESEE) economies within and outside the EU.
  • The conference featured panel discussions on capital markets integration, economic growth and resilience, the role of market infrastructure and supervision, the role of multinational development banks, venture and growth capital, the role of institutional investors, payment systems and the Single Euro Payments Area enlargement.

The 2025 Full Forum in Brussels was opened by John Berrigan, Director General of DG FISMA, European Commission. In March 2025, the European Commission published the Savings and Investments Union (SIU) strategy to better direct savings to productive investment and to provide a wider range of investment and financing opportunities for citizens and businesses. This comprises an ambitious reform agenda, including steps to encourage retail participation in capital markets, develop the supplementary pension sector, improve market integration and supervision, promote equity investment and enhance the competitiveness of the banking sector. Actions at both EU and national levels are necessary to progress with this project. At national level, the SIU offers the CESEE countries the opportunity to deepen the capital structure of their own economies and to foster innovation, sustainability, and prosperity.

Boris Vujčić, Governor of Croatian National Bank and Chairman of the Vienna Initiative Steering Committee explained that although cross-border banking and financial stability in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe remain fundamental concerns of Vienna Initiative, this year’s Forum turns the attention to another issue of equal strategic importance: the Savings and Investment Union and the broader project of Capital Markets Union. Why this shift? Because the capacity of our economies to mobilize and channel savings into productive investment is essential for sustaining growth, supporting innovation, and ensuring resilience. For the CESEE region in particular, deeper and more integrated capital markets are not just a complement to banking intermediation — they are a prerequisite for unlocking new opportunities, attracting investment, and bridging the gap with the rest of the European Union.

Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque delivered the keynote speech where she outlined specific challenges and opportunities for the CESEE region linked to the Savings and Investments Union project. She said that “in many CESEE countries, household savings rates remain low and conservatively invested while companies remain heavily dependent on bank financing. On the institutional investors side, in many CESEE countries, private pension and other investment funds often follow a conservative investment profile. These shortcomings hamper economic growth, innovation and investor returns but they also generate opportunities for financial market development and eventually for economic growth”.

Central bank governors or vice governors from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, high-level representatives of central banks from Poland and the European Central Bank participated in the forum. Senior representatives of national financial sector authorities, European Commission, international financial institutions (the EIB, EBRD, IFC, IMF, World Bank), cross-border banking groups, non-bank financial sector participants such as investment funds, pension funds, insurers, financial market infrastructures such as stock exchanges and clearing houses, as well as representatives of academia took part in the meeting.

Discussions in the forum reminded that following the global financial crisis, CESEE growth has been hindered by weak investment. Greater financial depth across the European Union and within the CESEE region could help remedy this issue. Market integration and supervision will play an important role and it would be key to mobilize retail savings and channel them from deposits to the capital markets. Institutional investors can provide the scale and liquidity needed for the efficient functioning of capital markets in the CESEE region. The discussions also confirmed challenges to venture and growth capital financing in several CESEE countries. In order to bridge this gap and to further develop innovation finance, multilateral development banks have been serving companies in the region. The focus is moving towards supporting companies and venture capital funds in the scale-up phase with pan-European solutions and in attracting more private sector institutional investors in the financing of innovation. In in the area of payments, some enlargement countries have joined recently the geographical scope of the SEPA schemes, which is a very important step for their European integration.

In concluding remarks, Sean Berrigan recalled that the SIU project needs engagement of relevant EU-level institutions as well as Member States in the EU and its neighbourhood. Years 2025 and 2026 will be crucial for shaping the SIU project. The European Commission has just created a blueprint for EU Savings and Investments Accounts and elaborated a financial literacy strategy. In the coming months, the European Commission will provide recommendations on auto-enrolment, pension tracking systems and pension dashboards; review the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP) Directive and the Pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP) Regulation; and work on the eligibility and clarification of equity investment by institutional investors. Next year, the European Venture Capital Fund (EuVECA) Regulation review and a report assessing the overall situation of the EU banking system (including its competitiveness) will follow. In the area of payments, Sean Berrigan encouraged the remaining enlargement countries which are in the process of preparing their SEPA applications to adopt the reforms needed and he offered Commission’s support.

The European Bank Coordination (Vienna) Initiative, launched in January 2009, is dedicated to the financial stability of emerging Europe. It initially helped addressing the outflow of capital from local subsidiaries of large cross-border banks in central and south-eastern Europe (CESEE) and then focused on the reduction of non-performing loans and monitoring deleveraging, credit and bank lending. The international financial institutions involved in the Vienna Initiative publish regular analysis of the market, including twice-yearly Non-Performing Loan monitors prepared by the EBRD. The Deleveraging and Credit Monitor is published by the IMF and the Bank Lending Survey by the EIB with the same frequency.