At the bank level, dividend income from equity participations has generally become much more important, indicating an increase in the importance of the profit generated by non-bank subsidiaries. Beside the establishment of non-bank subsidiaries, there have been other strategic and organisational changes that have resulted in banks strengthening their securities-related activities.
In particular, significant motives behind the recent merger trend seem to include the desire to increase bank size and hence to be able to operate efficiently in wholesale securities markets as well as to be able to cater for the needs of large international corporations for investment banking services.