The most prominent example is Nordea, which has significant market shares in each of the Nordic countries (except Iceland) – in Denmark's case almost a quarter of all deposits. EU legislation has contributed to harmonising the basis for conducting activities in the financial sector and removed barriers to cross-border operations.
The proportion of financial wealth to total wealth is much higher in the US, mainly because of the higher weight of private pension schemes, and it is also more volatile, owing to the higher weight of equity assets in total wealth.