The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which has been in place for nearly a year now, is in the process of making a place for itself as an increasingly present actors in the European regulatory environment. With staff of under 50 at the beginning of 2011, the authority will have 100 employees by the end of the year, and is aiming for about 160 by 2013, the president of ESMA, Steven Maijoor, announced in Luxembourg on 13 March, at the spring conference of the Luxembourg investment fund association (ALFI). This raises the question of the institution’s financing. The current model, which is based on mixed financing from the European Union and national authorities, is not well-adapted. “The European Union should provide 100% of the financing for ESMA’s budget,” the president says.Maijoor says the two major objectives of ESMA are to create a body of shared rules for all member states, and to set up appropriate supervision in order to ensure that the rules are applied consistently throughout all member states. In addition to these two long-term priorities, ESMA has several major projects underway, including surveillance of ratings agencies, which in 2012 will see the publication of a first report in the wake of inspections initiated in autumn 2011, rules for short-selling, and relations with outside countries. On this last point, Maijoor points out that ESMA has recently become an affiliated member of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), which he feels is the appropriate body to facilitate dialogue on various issues such as UCITS funds.In the area of financial innovation, Maijoor says that he has set up an ad hoc committee, which is currently concentrating on protection of retail investors and is gathering information from national regulators, in order to identify trends within this client segment.To this end, ESMA may issue warnings, which it has already done at least once, and may also be led to bar certain products, but it is still acting as a new power, whose contours have yet to be defined, particularly under the MiFID directive. Nonetheless, “the power to bar products may also help the financial sector in terms of reputation,” Maijoor says.