In addition, the ratio of credit to GDP in the euro area has – from a higher base level than in the US – increased even more markedly than on the other side of the Atlantic.
So, while shifts towards a more market-based financial system are clearly under way, continental Europe and the euro area, in particular, have – and will retain – a bank-dominated financial system for the foreseeable future. In this mostly market-driven process of gradual system transformation, the characteristics of bankbased systems will lose some of their importance in the euro area in the years ahead.