I would now like to give the results of some selected indicators, whereby I will restrict myself to the two “extremes”: the satisfactory level of integration is represented by the money market and the government bond market; and an unsatisfactory level of integration prevails in retail banking markets. I will also look at the degree of integration of financial infrastructures and financial institutions.
Let me start with the money market. The unsecured interbank deposit market was almost perfectly integrated right at the start of Monetary Union. Our indicator, the cross-country standard deviation of the average overnight lending rates among euro area countries, was as low as three basis points in early 1999 and has since decreased to just one basis point.