Oversized European banking sector likely to shrink: ECB's Nouy

[September 27, 2017]  FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Europe's bank sector has grown too big and may need to shrink, possibly through mergers or failures, Daniele Nouy, the European Central Bank's top bank supervisor said on Wednesday.

Daniele Nouy, chair of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank, speaks at a Thomson Reuters newsmaker event at Canary Wharf in London November 28, 2014. REUTERS/Neil Hall/File Photo

"All in all, it seems that the European banking sector might indeed have become too much of a good thing," Nouy said. "And we can see at least one of the health issues related to this – many banks in the euro area do not earn their cost of capital.

"It seems that there are too many banks competing for customers," Nouy added. "There is a good chance that the banking sector will indeed shrink"

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Francesco Canepa)

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