The impacts of the global economic crisis and its aftermath on the banking centres of Europe

Abstract

This paper aims to unravel the impacts of the global economic crisis upon European banking centres on the basis of the evolution of key economic indicators, such as total assets, profitability and the level of risk to the banking sector over the 2004–2015 period. Counterintuitively, the European leading banking centres (London, Paris and Frankfurt), despite their extensive exposure to capital markets, displayed a high level of resilience, which contrasts with the evolution of the other major Western European centres, which clearly lagged behind the European leaders. From a macro-regional perspective, banking centres in Western Europe exhibited the first signals of both the crisis and the recovery, which were subsequently diffused across Europe. Surprisingly, the profitability of low-ranking banking centres in Central and Eastern Europe remained the highest over the whole 2004–2015 period, as these banks operate predominantly within a regional (national) market. Overall, during the 2004–2015 period, London, Paris and Frankfurt clearly strengthened their dominance among European banking centres.