It should create a level playing field for the European banking industry and remove any national biases or supervisory forbearance, and prevent the hiding of bad assets – or even leniency – towards so-called “national champions”, a phenomenon that might have become more acute during the crisis.
It is a myth that such champions were in the interests either of domestic economies or of national taxpayers. But the SSM will go well beyond that: it will result in the elimination of asset and liability matching on a national level that has done so much harm. How will the Single Supervisory Mechanism function in practice?