By this measure, growth averaged about 3.2 percent annually through the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. But growth began to decline after 2000 and then nose-dived with the onset of the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 and the slow expansion that followed.
Whether the next wave of consolidation requires cross-border M&A activity is  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  questionable, since the need to acquire national franchises to operate on a cross-border basis has been significantly reduced by freedom of services legislation, the move to a single supervisory mechanism for banks in the euro area and the increasing harmonisation of regulations for non-bank financial firms.