Our indicator shows a rise in venture capital financing in Europe in the recent years; however, the starting level is very low. More precisely, the euro area average for the last five years amounts to 0.02% of GDP, compared with 0.1% in the United States. Therefore, I see more room for investigating ways to promote the development of this type of markets as well.
The final market I want to include in my overview of the state of financial integration is the banking market. Again, banking markets offer a nice illustration of how important the underlying infrastructure is. The wholesale and capital market-related segments are supported by TARGET2 and, not surprisingly, are well integrated.