Monday, September 26, 2005

ABN AMRO to acquire controlling stake in Antonveneta

The EU-market finally opens: central banks and regulators can no longer silently back nationalistic plans to keep the business domestic. As a result we will see some more cross-country mergers, so that in a timespan of 15 years, domestic orientations of regulators, bank-associations, pressure groups etc. will not make sense any more.

The new divide may be based on scale (big banks vs smaller banks); on risk profile (risky and inexpensive banks vs low-risk, expensive banks). Or any other orientation for that matter. No-one really knows which paradigm to shift to... but time will surely tell.