Bank Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions (Causes, Consequences and Recent Trends)

In the past fifteen years, cross-border mergers and acquisitions had an ever increasing role in the process of bank internationalization. Although a consensus view has developed on the determinants of a bank's decision to expand abroad and on the determinant of the patterns of expansion, the debate on the consequences of foreign bank presence is still open. The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, I discuss the major results of the literature studying the determinants and the patterns of bank foreign expansion. Second, I confront the available evidence with the most recent evolution in cross-border bank M&As. At the end I suggest some possible lines for future research