Contestability in Financial Markets

The Global banking industry is under a major phase of consolidation as bank mergers and acquisitions transform the structure of the global banking industry. The structure of the banking industry varies from country to country. For instance, European banking is a mix of public, state, co-operative, mutual and quoted banks. Different types of banks have different objectives, with regard to concepts like shareholder value added and stake holder value added. One of the central pressures common to all European countries is increased competition due to excess capacity, declining entry barriers developments in European capital markets, consumer unbundling of financial services and product innovations like securitization.