This role should be performed in particular by institutional investors, given their fiduciary responsibility towards those who have entrusted them with their savings, and by banking foundations, which manage funds in the interest of the community. The latter’s responsibility is all the more delicate and important for being less clearly defined in formal terms.
The present limits on non-financial corporations’ shareholdings in banks and the associated prohibition on their acquisition of controlling interests will also be reviewed in the light of the forthcoming Community legislation. Conditions are now ripe for reform of the legislation governing cooperative banks, to which it is hoped they will make a constructive contribution.