Public Intelligence

Shadow banking, as one of the main sources of financial stability concerns, is the subject of much international debate. In broad terms, shadow banking refers to activities related to credit intermediation and liquidity and maturity transformation that take place outside the regulated banking system. This paper presents a first investigation of the size and the structure of shadow banking within the euro area, using the statistical data sources available to the ECB/Eurosystem.

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible. Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis. The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.

Les données sur la solvabilité et la liquidité bancaires.

When a particular part of the population is especially important for a survey, oversampling that group can help the survey to provide better estimates. However, oversampling is not always easy or inexpensive. The ideal situation is one where information exists for the population that can help to discriminate the interesting sub-group and that information is available for sampling. Sometimes the information is weak for the intended purpose and sometimes there are restrictions on the use of information that make sampling difficult or impossible.

The Eurosystem strongly supports the Commission’s objective of creating a safe, efficient and integrated EU clearing and settlement infrastructure. In principle, the Communication identifies the key issues that need to be addressed in the field of clearing and settlement in order to enhance integration and reduce systemic risk. The present infrastructure for securities clearing and settlement transactions in the EU remains insufficiently harmonised, highly fragmented and inefficient for cross-border activities. Although some consolidation has been achieved, there remain a very large number of service providers with limited competition between each other.

Introduction for Panel discussion “A Case for Rapid Euro Adoption?”

OeNB Conference on European Economic Integration
Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell
Member of the Executive Board
Vienna, 16 November 2009