Complementing Europe's bank-based system with deeper capital markets and more cross-border financial integration promises benefits, but despite long-running debate and policy action, financial system change remains slow. Fintech has the potential to change financial intermediation structures...

Europeans like to believe the European Union has the collective economic size and capacity to determine its own economic destiny. But the behaviour of others global powers is increasingly calling this ability into question. China and the United States, especially, do not separate economic...

The European Union can look ahead at the next five years from a good economic position. Employment is comparatively high, the recovery has been uninterrupted for several years and income inequality remains less pronounced than elsewhere in the world. But the EU faces nevertheless formidable...

The global trading system, a source of prosperity, is under attack on various fronts. The causes run deep and require a strategic response from the European Union and from the main trading nations. The future of the system hinges on the answer to three questions, and the scenarios associated...

Quantitative easing (QE) affects banks’ profitability in three main ways. First, as QE drives up bond prices, banks holding such bonds see their balance sheets strengthened. Second, QE reduces long-term yields and thereby reduces term spreads. With this, the lending-deposit ratio spread falls,...