Banking Union Research Articles

Euro sovereign debt crisis: moral suasion in GIPS government bond funds

ABSTRACT This study is the first to test whether moral suasion is the main driver of the increasing home bias in Euro government bond mutual funds after the Euro debt crisis, with a focus on the most financially stressed economies during this period: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain (GIPS). The findings reject the potential spillover effect of this type of financial repression of the previously documented European Union banking sector in GIPS government bond funds. The results reveal that informal pressure by performance-chasing unitholders might act as an effective self-control mechanism in moral suasion channels in the mutual fund industries of fiscally stressed countries.

Integration level within the European Union banking sector

Purpose What is the current level of integration of the retail and wholesale banking sectors in the European Union (EU) countries, and what are the main factors and challenges affecting it? What are the solutions to promote the integration and convergence of the retail banking sector in the European countries?. Design/methodology/approach Evaluated the level of integration of the banking sector, focusing on the EU banking context, retail banking especially. The paper will adopt a comprehensive and multidimensional approach, considering different criteria and indicators of integration, such as price, quantity and information, as well as different segments and dimensions of the EU banking sector, such as wholesale and retail, assets and liabilities, products, services, price indicators and institutions and markets. Findings It reveals that while significant integration has been realized in domains like the money market and wholesale banking, it is less pronounced in the retail banking and capital markets. Originality/value This paper is an original research. The entire study belongs to me.

Board gender equality and ESG performance. Evidence from European banking sector

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between board gender equality and environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the European banking sector. The study examines whether and how the presence of women on the board of directors (BoD) influences ESG dimensions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyzed a sample of 72 European Union banks for the period 2015–2021 and developed an econometric model applying unbalanced panel data regression with firm fixed effects and controls per year. To test the research hypotheses, the authors considered gender equality in terms of female participation on the BoD and measured ESG dimensions by using the ESG score provided by Refinitiv.FindingsThe findings suggest a significant positive relationship between the number of women on BoD and the ESG performance of European banks only up to a certain threshold of female directors (at least three women). The study also explores how the proportion of women on BoD influences the individual ESG pillars. The results show that the percentage of female directors has a positive and statistically significant impact on the social dimension of the ESG framework.Research limitations/implicationsThe investigation is highly relevant to investors considering ESG issues in their decision-making process. The overall findings support policymakers and regulators on how to improve ESG performance through the design and the application of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms. From a managerial perspective, the study suggests that managers and CEOs should focus their efforts on establishing the right gender combination of directors on bank BoDs.Originality/valueThis paper offers an in-depth examination of the CG practices of banks, and it attempts to bridge the gap in prior literature on the determinants of ESG issues in the European banking industry. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first that investigates the relationship between the representation of women on BoDs and the ESG dimensions measured by the Refinitiv Eikon score. The use of critical mass theory adds a fresh perspective to the literature on ESG in Europe since the influence of board gender diversity on ESG performance of the European banks is still unaccounted for. This study addresses this pressing research issue drawing on resource dependence, agency and legitimacy theories.

The trialistic nature of charging bank balance sheet itemswith public levies – de lege ferenda postulates

This article concerns the issue of imposing three different public levies on banks, fulfilling different purposes,based on the balance sheet items of banks – a tax on certain financial institutions, a contribution to the compulsorybank restructuring fund and payments for banking supervision. It is pointed out that both the economicburden of banks and administrative obligations are multiplied in the situation of the identity of the subject of thelevy burden. The author characterizes the aforementioned public levies to the necessary extent and puts forwardde lege ferenda postulates aimed at changing the current legal status until Po land joins the banking union.

Operational risk disclosure quality and national culture: Evidence from the E.U. Banking industry

In this study, we analyze the association between national culture and voluntary operational risk disclosure quality in the European Union banking industry. Complementarily, we assess whether the potential impact of culture differs between global banks and banks with low levels of internationalization. Finally, we consider the impact of the formal institutional environment. Our sample covers 15 countries, and we construct a disclosure score based on hand-collected data. Three main results were obtained. First, banks in societies that score higher on individualism or long-term orientation and lower on uncertainty avoidance or power distance have better disclosures. Second, in global banks, where executive board members interact with stakeholders from different cultures, these associations are absent. Finally, contextual factors also affect the association between culture and disclosure, but this substitution effect is weaker than the one we document for globalization. Our results are robust to instrumental variables estimation, the use of the GLOBE project’s cultural dimensions, and a subsample analysis of civil code law countries.

Перспективы наднационализации банковского регулирования и надзора в ЕАЭС в формате «мини-Базель III»

The objectives of economic integration suggest countries’ mutual efforts to their implementation. In fact, the post-crisis recovery demonstrated that there is virtually no alternative to Basel III standards and recommendations in protecting against external shocks and strengthening the stress resilience of banks. Besides, in the EU, the Basel III mechanism has become the basis for the standardization of regulatory policies. However, in the EAEU, integration processes are still missing any banking regulation accords, while the variety of the national regulatory regimes hinders integration and slows down the process of supranationalization of the regulatory architecture, threatening the exacerbation of systemic risks and, ultimately, the erosion of strategic focus within the framework of the EAEU’s single financial market and the EAEU integration at large. This article is the first attempt to propose the perspectives of bringing together the national regulatory regimes in the EAEU based on Basel III as well as reaching the consensus in the “Mini-Basel III” concept in order to further strengthen- ing the economic basis of integration processes, including minimization of systemic risks and ensuring financial stability. Based on the analysis of banking supervision standards in the EAEU member states and their quantitative metrics in 2015–2024 (i.e., from the moment the Basel III standards have been phasing-in in the EAEU member states), we came to the conclusion that different regulatory regimes are the main source of systemic risks, while single regulatory regime will minimize systemic stress subject to implementation of the Mini-Basel III framework. Furthermore, taking into consider- ation the increasing uncertainty and riskiness in the Eurasian financial market, we have developed scenarios of financial integration that are based on the Mini-Basel III concept and without it. At the same time, the dominance of implicit and often apparent advantages of the different vs. single regulatory regimes, as well as sanctions imposed on Russia and the threat of secondary sanctions against the remaining EAEU member states will impede implementation of the Mini-Basel III concept. The proposed Mini-Basel III concept could be used by financial regulators in developing an EAEU supranational banking regulation mechanism, including for regulation of the prospective regional banking union

The impact of recapitalisations and bank competition on Greek bank net interest margins

PurposeThis study investigates the reasons behind the very high net interest margins in the Greek banking industry compared to the euro-area, focussing on the association between bank competition and recapitalisations.Design/methodology/approachThe author conducts a dynamic panel analysis covering the period from the early 2000s to 2021, that controls for possible endogeneity and treats for heterogeneity. The author also employs local projections impulse response functions that control for structural changes in Greek banking.FindingsThe author finds that low bank competition has contributed to high net interest margins in Greece. Interestingly, the impact of recapitalisations conditional to low bank competition has had a significant further impact on increasing net interest margins, which is a noteworthy case due to several Greek bank recapitalisations in the last ten years. The author’s findings are supported by local projections impulse response functions.Originality/valueTo mitigate distortions in bank competition, the author argues to accelerate steps toward the direction of the banking union and a common bank regulation framework in the euro-area.

Board demographics and performance: evidence from European Union banks

Board demographics and performance: evidence from European Union banks

The impact of the single supervisory mechanism on Eurozone banking: the assessment of trends in efficiency and frontier position

ABSTRACT The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) was implemented as a first step towards a Banking Union in November 2014. This paper investigates the impact of the SSM on Eurozone banks’ efficiency and position of best-practice frontier. It is based on a balanced panel analysis of 931 European bank-year observations from 2011 to 2017 (133 banks, seven years). The study uses Data Envelopment Analysis and a difference-in-differences approach to explore the evolution of banking performance. We found that the SSM had a negative impact on the efficiency levels of Eurozone banks, particularly in the year after the introduction of the mechanism. Additionally, we observed that the frontier formed by non-Eurozone European Union banks is more productive than the frontier of Eurozone banks in all the years analysed. Both efficiency and frontier position show evidence of a recovery trend in more recent years for both groups. We also found that while Equity-to-Asset Ratio, Return on Average Assets and Gross Domestic Product per capita positively impacted banks’ efficiency, domestic credit provided by banks expressed as %GDP had a negative impact on efficiency.

Building trust to prevent banking crises

Banking crises are a feature of the modern financial system. However, their impact and probability can be mitigated by building trust in the banking sector. This is primarily achieved by banks themselves. However, with vigilant ex-ante monitoring and swift and decisive action when a banking crisis emerges, regulators can shore up trust in the banking sector. The Single Resolution Board, as the banking union’s central resolution authority, is a key element of the post-global financial crisis regulatory framework and has been promoting trust in the banking sector by making banks more resolvable.

Law and discretion in monetary policy and in the banking union: Complexity between high politics and administration

The controversy over the degree of judicial review of monetary policy decisions triggered by the contrasting Weiss judgments of the German Federal Constitutional Court and of the Court of Justice of the European Union invites an inquiry into the role of law in areas characterized by a high degree of political and technical complexity. This article singles out the structural conditions that qualify complexity in specific instances of decision-making: prognostic assessments, goal-oriented decisions, marked by uncertainty, legal indeterminacy, and discretion. These traits characterize both monetary policy decisions and some regulatory decisions taken within the banking union, such as the setting of minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) and the calculation of the leverage ratios of credit institutions (Livret A judgments). Irrespective of the very distinct formal-institutional legal frameworks of these two policy fields, in those conditions legality may be determined by the discretionary choices of the decision-maker. For this reason, they impact the court’s deployment of legal principles, namely proportionality and careful and impartial examination. This cross-sector comparison sheds light on the relative specificity of monetary policy, and leads to rejecting the transposition of a distinction between “high politics” and “ordinary administration” to EU law, as a means of both explaining and guiding different degrees of judicial review in conditions of complexity. The different constitutional relevance of monetary policy decisions and of “ordinary” banking supervision requires not a distinction that can rationalize judicial review, but a full consideration of the role that the law must have in supporting non-judicial accountability. judicial review of administrative discretion, complex technical and economic assessments, monetary policy, proportionality, banking union, principle of careful and impartial examination

Competition and Stability in the European Union Banking Sector

This paper empirically tests the two competing hypotheses regarding the relationship between competition and stability: the competition-fragility hypothesis and the competition-stability hypothesis. The banking sector stability is proxied with the estimated Z-score, which provides a measure of overall bank stability. Two different measures are used to represent bank competition: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (a specific measure of market concentration) and the Boone indicator (which measures competition from an efficiency perspective). Using data from the Moody’s Analytics BankFocus database and the World Bank Global Financial Development database, the paper applies panel estimations to a relatively large panel, including 784 relevant banks from all 27 European Union countries, between 2006 and 2021. The main findings overall confirm the validity of the competition-fragility hypothesis. Moreover, the results obtained for two specific European Union countries, Germany and France, highlight some specific differences, particularly regarding the effects of bank market concentration and the responses to the crises that affected the European Union banking institutions over the considered period. The findings of this paper reinforce the relevance of the policy maker’s role and indicate, for example, that bank market competition in the European Union is probably already sufficiently high and should not be reinforced, as overall, the increase in bank competition seems detrimental to the stability of European Union banking institutions.

In Europe we trust: selecting and empowering EU institutions in disruptive circumstances

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, the European Union (EU) made significant strides in economic and fiscal policy integration without formal treaty-based changes. After the euro crisis, member states granted the European Central Bank banking supervisory powers. During the pandemic, they entrusted the European Commission with raising EU debt through NextGenerationEurope. This article examines the empowerment of supranational institutions as a deliberate ajustment to disruptive circumstances. By so doing, it demonstrates that empowerment can happen through legislative acts and joint decisions by member states. The study reveals that when states have multiple agent options, like in the banking union, they select the institution they trust the most. Conversely, in nested delegation games, extensive monitoring and reporting requirements, as in the case of NextGenerationEurope, are aimed at avoiding the defection of single member states, what we call ”principal slack”, at the implementation stage.

Dynamiek van naoorlogse private schuldgroei in Nederland

The level of private debt in the Netherlands is exceptional in both historical and comparative terms. High debt ratios inhibit economic growth, induce financial fragility and lead to deeper and more tenacious recessions. Facilitated by fiat money creation, private debt in the modern economy mainly consists of bank credit. Internationally shared causes of the rise in bank money are the decline in cash payments, tax deductions and a narrowed focus in monetary policy. In the Dutch case, liberalized mortgages, the side effects of the funded pension system and the strong concentration of the banking system add to these. It is the confluence of these factors that has made Dutch debt growth since the 1970s exceptional. Some of these, notably the deduction of interest on mortgages and financial deregulation, have dominated the debate on this subject and hence are part of public perception. However, this does not apply to other mechanisms mentioned, such as the role of bank money and that of bank concentration. As a result, policy analysis of the debt problem thus far has been selective. The lessons of Dutch financial development are of importance to the realization of the European banking union and to monetary policy and taxation in the euro area. Our analysis demonstrates the usefulness of applied history.

The Bank lending channel and sovereign risk: Effects on significant and less significant banks after the implementation of the Banking Union

The Banking Union (BU) has given rise to the distinction between two types of banks, significant banks and less significant ones. This distinction may have produced asymmetries in the transmission of monetary policy, which has not been analysed by the previous literature. This paper tries to fill this gap in the literature by analysing the differences that monetary policy changes have on the loan supply of significant and less significant banks. Our sample consists of banks from the euro area and spans 2014 to 2020. Our empirical model, which is based on the System Generalized Method of Moments (System-GMM) methodology, regress the loan supply growth of each bank on monetary policy and sovereign risk indicators, significant and less significant banks dummies, and a group of control variables. Our results show that, although the BU may have well contributed to a smoother transmission of the monetary policy through the bank lending channel, there are still differences in how monetary policy changes affect the loan supply of significant and less significant banks. The different behaviour of the bank lending channel is observed mainly in countries with low sovereign risk, where the bank lending channel is only effective reducing the loan supply of less significant banks. Our results indicate that greater banking integration is necessary in the euro area.

Differences in Covid‐Related Regulatory Forbearance Within and Outside the Banking Union – The Case of East‐Central European EU Member States

AbstractThis article analyses the practice of Covid‐related bank regulatory forbearance measures of eight East‐Central European Union member states from the perspective of differentiated integration. In line with the integration‐deepening nature of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, our expectation was that countries within the Banking Union (BU) would impose harmonized forbearance measures, while non‐BU members would use more discretional measures. Indeed, the practice of forbearance measures is significantly more harmonized within the BU than outside; however, there were also notable differences in the practice of BU members. For non‐BU member states, our expectation was that countries with the intention of favouring their domestic financial system would ease regulatory requirements more, while those that wanted to place the burden of the pandemic on foreign banks would ease these requirements less. However, the analysis only partially confirmed this expectation.

EU Banks’ Accounting Policy Decisions and Market Influence

This study investigates the impact that market discipline mechanisms have on European Union (EU) banks’ accounting policy decisions. We investigate the association between the level of loan loss provisions (LLPs) with earnings before provisions and taxes when depositors appear to withdraw their funds and demand higher deposit rates. We examine whether market discipline motivates banks to adjust earnings through accounting accruals. Empirical findings suggest that the demand for higher deposit rates limits management’s accounting discretion. By contrast, withdrawals appear to encourage managers to use income smoothing via LLPs. The observed associations appear to be conditioned by banks’ systemic importance and capital adequacy levels.

The European Central Bank and financial stability: a quarter of a century of evolution and transformation (1998-2023)

This article examines the evolution of the mandate and tasks of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the field of financial stability since its establishment in 1998. Over this period, the significance of the ECB’s financial stability function has increased markedly, in parallel with the growth of macroprudential policy and driven by the institutional reforms stemming from the creation of the European Systemic Risk Board in 2010 and the start of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in 2014. To carry out its tasks, the ECB has a Financial Stability Committee, which is made up of representatives of the central banks and banking supervisory authorities of the SSM area – including the Banco de España – , that acts as an internal forum for the ECB’s governing bodies to prepare issues relating to the analysis of risks and vulnerabilities and national macroprudential policies in the banking union. Lastly, an overview is provided of the main ECB publications and public interventions in this field.

The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU): status quo and the way forward

The present paper, structured in three sections, contains a brief presentation and analysis of the foundations and development of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and of the policies implemented therein. Section A (“Key Design Elements of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)”) sets out the institutional foundations of the EMU. The following Section B (“The Impact of the Four Major Crises During the Period 2007-2022”) develops, through the lens of the (2007-2009) global financial crisis (GFC), the subsequent fiscal crisis in the euro area, the pandemic crisis and the recent (since 2022) inflation crisis, on three aspects: how the single monetary policy by the European Central Bank (ECB) within the Eurosystem has been implemented; how the Economic Union has been strengthened (inter alia, regarding sovereign crisis management); and what is the role of the ECB, beyond the exercise of its monetary policy and other basic tasks within the Eurosystem, within the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS) and the first pillar of the Banking Union (BU), which were, respectively, “children” of the two first above-mentioned crises. Finally, Section C (“The Way Forward”) discusses current trends and developments in relation to the implementation of monetary policy; the ongoing reform of the economic governance framework and the link between monetary and fiscal policies; as well as the ‘unfinished’ agenda in relation to the Banking Union.

Chinese bank networks in Europe: FDI-oriented by legal and strategic design

ABSTRACT Chinese banks have been building an extensive network of branches and subsidiaries across the European Union, which they govern from their European headquarters in Luxembourg. This striking observation guides this paper’s research questions: Why do Chinese banks create such branch-cum-subsidiary structures across the EU, and why do they do it in Luxembourg? The paper dissects forensically these financial structures and mechanisms forged through the co-design of Luxembourg’s legal-business environment and Chinese banks’ internationalization strategies. We argue that Chinese banks facilitate Chinese FDI, and that this function determines the particular branch-cum-subsidiary structure of Chinese banks in the EU. It is a unique feature impossible to establish outside the EU. Chinese state-owned banks in Luxembourg are thus important, yet analytically widely neglected actors in the formation of global financial networks (GFNs). This research is particularly significant when considering the intensifying integration of the emerging Chinese market into global finance and, in particular, into the EU banking union. Empirical findings suggest that Chinese banks in Luxembourg use the specific branch-cum-subsidiary structures to (i) finance both their large Chinese and European corporate clients, which (ii) allows Chinese banks to circumvent specific regulatory and operational constraints in other EU member states, especially when (iii) serving Chinese corporations in their FDI to the EU. The internationalizing Chinese bank networks in the EU can thus be defined as FDI-oriented by legal and strategic design. This research highlights their constituent features and the resulting capabilities of GFNs that affect regional investment activities.