Nordic Financial Ecosystem Forum 2026

William Wright, New Financial’s founder and managing director was delighted to contribute to the Nordic Financial Ecosystem Forum in Brussels. 

William moderated a panel discussion on “Building competitive and efficient EU Capital markets” exploring how Europe can strengthen its capital markets in an increasingly competitive and interconnected global landscape. 

The panel brought together perspectives from across the industry including Tanya Panova, Head of CMU Unit, European Commission; Adam Kostyal, Senior Vice President and Head of Listings EMEA, Nasdaq Nordic; Aleksandra Mączyńska, Chief Executive Officer, BETTER FINANCE - European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users; Andy Mitchell, President & Chief Executive Officer, The Securities and Investment Management Association (SIMA); Phil Mackintosh, Chief Economist, Nasdaq and Emma Hedman, Chief Operating Officer, Ung Privatekonomi.

The discussion focused on several key themes, including:

- The importance of building engaged retail participation and deeper pools of pensions assets to support bigger and deeper capital markets: while the EU is steering member states in this direction, this can ultimately only be done at a national level.

- The role of market integration at an EU level to encourage scale and efficiency.

- The need for national governments to have a clear and ambitious strategy for investment and capital markets in place – and the right incentives, conditions, and tax structures in place to support it.

- What the EU can learn from the Canadian and US markets (and what the EU should avoid…).

- The need to develop greater financial literacy across the EU (both through formal financial education and through ‘learning by doing…’).

- And the need to make retail access as simple as possible while ensuring investor protection.

It was great to see such a strong turnout for this event and thank you to all panel participants for a lively and interesting debate.

If you would like to find out more about New Financial’s work on capital markets or our upcoming events programme, please get in touch via: info@newfinancial.org