Finally, financial integration can also be fostered by financial institutions establishing branches and subsidiaries in other euro area countries or by two institutions merging across borders. The wide coverage of the ECB’s definition of financial integration is attributable to the fact that if only the first condition is fulfilled, i.e.
the existence of a single set of rules for a given market, potential participants might still be discriminated against in terms of access to the market. Consequently, the ECB’s definition includes a second condition whereby participants should not be discriminated against in their access to a market.