The fact that the allocation of responsibility between countries in the event of cross-border crises is in principle unregulated leads to at least two serious problems. Firstly, it lays the foundation for the conflict of interests I just described. Even if the responsibility for crisis management is formally unregulated, it will unavoidably fall to the country whose economy is to a large degree dependent on the bank that is in distress. This country is not necessarily the same country that has the responsibility for supervision of the bank. One consequence could thus be that a country which is substantially influenced by foreign banks could be forced to pay the bill for unsatisfactory supervision exercised by another country. The lack of a formal link between responsibility for supervision and crisis management is in this case an evident problem. Secondly, the unregulated allocation of responsibility for crisis management means that each country that is involved in a cross-border crisis is thrown upon its own national crisis management and on the goodwill of the other affected countries in contributing to efficient crisis management. It is far from certain that this will lead to the optimal solutions. Without uniform regulations, forms for cooperation or mechanisms for joint decision-making, there is a considerable risk that we will find ourselves in “gamelike situations” where the countries involved act in various ways to avoid paying the crisis “bill”. In this type of situation there is a clear risk that all parties involved will be the losers.
More than 40 European bank groups have a substantial part of their operations in more than three European countries. Names such as Unicredit, Barclays, Fortis and ING are all examples of banks in the forefront of this development. The internationally-active banks are moreover increasingly offering services to households and smaller companies. The integration process has been particularly evident in our own neighbourhood. Nordea and Danske Bank have substantial market shares outside of their respective home countries. With the exception of Iceland, it is in Nordea’s case a question of market shares of more than 10 per cent in all of the Nordic countries. Swedbank and SEB are dominant actors in the Baltic region. But financial integration is now also increasing rapidly in other parts of Europe. The timing of my speech could hardly be more appropriate. Only in recent weeks the media has reported on farreaching plans for a merger between British Barclays and Dutch ABN Amro, two banks which together would become one of the world's largest players in this sector. Parallel to this cross-border integration process there is also another type of integration within the banks. It is becoming increasingly common for these groups to organise themselves so that they in practice function as one bank instead of a number of independent bank companies. What drives the banks to change their organisation is the efficiency gains obtained through greater centralisation and specialisation.