The analysis of the structure of ownership in the financial sector in the old and new EU Member States is particularly important for the proper understanding of the scale and scope of the process of financialisation in the EU countries. The importance of the structure of ownership in the financial sector of the EU countries comes in two ways. First, changes in the structure of ownership in the financial sector reflect the progress of privatization in many European countries, especially in the new EU Member States (NMS). Secondly, the changes are a result of freedom of capital mobility in the whole EU. Consequently, both phenomena have a strong influence on the withdrawal of the State from the financial sector. This makes exerting the control over the functioning of the domestic financial institutions less focused.
The structure of ownership in the EU financial sector is influenced heavily by restructuring and privatisation processes, as they lead to consolidation and disintermediation: on the one hand, breaking the traditional chain value while some functions are being fulfilled by new financial intermediaries; and on the other, decreasing the availability of funds for business and individual clients as a result of transformation of the financial markets into more oligopolistic ones.
Download policy brief: ‘Structures of ownership in the financial sector‘
