Liikanen

On January 29th, the European Commission (EC) released its proposal on structural reform that would impose new constraints on the structure of European banks. The proposal aims at ensuring the harmonization between the divergent national initiatives in Europe. However, the EC goes beyond many of the European national legislations and opts for a mix solution that establishes both (i) a prohibition of proprietary trading such as the US Volcker Rule and (ii) a mechanism to require the separation of trading activities including market making such as the UK Banking Reform. This note provides a description of the proposal, a comparison with the other undertaken initiatives and an assessment