27 April 2015

European Commission: European financial stability and integration review

This year's European Financial Stability and Integration Review (EFSIR) was launched at a conference organised with the European Central Bank on 27 April 2015 in Brussels.

Chapter 1 reviews financial market developments in 2014 and during the first months of 2015. The chapter shows how a series of economic indicators signal that the recovery of the EU economy is gaining traction.

However, economic growth remains slow and output has yet to reach pre-crisis levels. Some risk and vulnerabilities of the European economy are also to be noted. Firstly, despite many years of extraordinary monetary stimulus, structural reforms and regulatory reforms, the EU and many other economies remain in a low growth and low inflation environment (also influenced by demographic trends), while historical high debt levels have hardly come down. Secondly, financial markets and financial system in the EU and abroad have overall been resilient over the past several months; however, some short episodes of volatility have also been observed.

Finally, the protracted low yield environment may generate some risks linked to the search for yield, a potential sharp and disorderly reversal in the assessment of risk, the build-up of bubbles in specific market segments, potential reduction of private sector consumption, compression of profit margins for financial institutions against the guaranteed returns to policy holders (insurance corporations and pension funds), or a false sense of security that may lead to delaying consolidation. The chapter also analyses the developments in the different segments of the financial sector including bank loans, bonds and quoted shares.

Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the structure of the financial sector in the European Union. In particular, it provides a quantitative overview of the role of the financial system in channelling funding across the economy. The analysis presented here deals with questions such as who is providing credit, who is using this credit, in which form the credit is formalised or through which channels financial resources flow. Besides the size of the different institutional sector (e.g. households, non-financial corporations) in terms of assets and liabilities, the chapter also reviews the preferences of markets participants as reflected in the mix of products they choose to invest in or to use as a source of funding. These customer preferences in the provision and use of funding determine the importance and role that the financial sector, and its different segments, is to play in the European economy.

The chapter also analyses the three main channels that the European economy uses for financing its activities. First, organised markets: issuance of bonds, quoted shares or private placements. Secondly, financing channelled through the direct interaction of a firm with its stakeholders (i.e. customers, local and national authorities, employees, supplier, etc.) in the form of equity, loans or advances.

Direct financing requires that both the providers and the users of funding have the same preferences and to interact with each other. However, this is not always possible. Therefore, the third channel of financing is provided by financial institutions, which provide an intermediation service of connecting the resources of savers and depositors with those of borrowers and investors and of adapting the features of savings to the needs of investors through what is called maturity transformation. Although financial institutions do not generate net additional financial resources, they play a crucial role in allowing for the full mobilisation of the savings generated by the economy to be allocated to investment projects2 .

Once credit within the financial sector is netted out (e.g. interbank credit or the interactions of banks with the shadow banking) these three channels have broadly the same size, providing about one third of the total financing of the economy each.

The chapter also highlights the high level of interconnection and interaction between the different economic agents which can lead to high levels of complexity and interdependence.

The information gathered and the discussion presented throughout this chapter can be a useful background for a number of Commission policies including the on-going work on developing capital markets union and for the investment plan for Europe.

In the second part, the review contains 5 special focus chapters on current issues of particular interest for understanding developments in financial market structure, regulation, and technology.

Full report

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