In part, this development has been spurred by the surge in mergers and acquisitions and leveraged buy-outs that has taken place in markets of late, not least in the euro area. One aspect of this securitisation process has been the increase in corporate bond issuance, which has also coincided with a diminishing supply of government bonds in many countries, particularly in the United States.
Once again, I would draw your attention to the low-interest-rate survey, whose findings suggest that small and medium-sized German institutions are expecting their cost-income ratio to increase. Unfortunately, this puts German credit institutions at the bottom of the European league. If the cost-income ratio remains poor because of a failure to significantly bring down administrative costs, then more has to be done.