Strong rules help to win people’s trust, and that is an important asset for banks. A few banks still have some way to go – they still need to adapt their business models; they need to find their competitive advantage. Those banks which want to prosper in the future need to act now. And it is indeed possible to prosper, even in tough times.
Across the euro area, we see about two dozen large banks which constantly outperform their peers. They are based in different countries, they are of different sizes, and they have different business models. So it is not about a single successful business model. It is about the whole set-up of how to do banking today.