This report surveys recent empirical research on the state and development of retail banking integration in Europe. It finds a broad consensus that retail banking integration is still limited, although integration seems to have gained momentum more recently. At the same time, the survey finds...

This paper argues that transparency-boosting measures specifically tailored to commodity and commodity derivatives markets are much needed. In particular, encouraging the creation of a clearing infrastructure for OTC commodity and commodity derivatives markets would be desirable. Moreover, EU...

The financial crisis exposed dangerous weaknesses in the regulatory and oversight structure that need to be urgently corrected to restore confidence in the financial system and to keep the single market alive. Towards this end, this CEPS Task Force report puts forward three main policy...

This report considers four short-term, alternative scenarios for the eurozone and analyses their possible implications for global economic trends and the gold market. Overall, the main findings suggest that in the near future, motives other than inflation hedging will be the main drivers of gold...

Based on a sample of 15 European countries, this survey analyses various features of the European IPO (Initial Public Offering) market over the period from 1995 to 2004: listing requirements, IPO-mechanism choices, performance and secondary market liquidity. First, the comparison of national...

The key concept underlying the Basel II framework for risk measurement and corresponding equity capital standards is that the existing regulations pertaining to credit risk will be individualised through reference to the internal ratings of banks. In accordance with the regulatory guidelines,...

The aim of this work is to provide empirical elements on the performance of consumer credit companies in the European Union by applying efficiency frontier techniques. These techniques, widely applied in banking literature, provide sophisticated measures of performance – the efficiency scores....

[From the Introduction] The consumer credit market depends on the exchange of personal information among market participants. Credit bureaus are the primary repositories of this information, and in recent years they have gathered a vast amount of data on creditworthiness of individuals....

[From the Introduction] This study provides new evidence on the emergence of a single eurozone retail banking market with particular reference to consumer credit. Given the heterogeneous nature of consumer credit products in the eurozone, the authors reject the earlier proposition of the...

[From the Introduction]. Economic deregulation in many industrialised countries during the 1980s, the liberalisation of capital movements within the European Union (EU) in 1990, and the establishment of the single market for financial services have radically transformed the regulatory framework...