(Bloomberg) -- The European Commission has vowed to speed up a planned review of the competitiveness of the bloc’s banks after the region’s three biggest economies demanded urgent action to ensure their lenders can properly compete with Wall Street rivals.
The Commission will publish a report on the “overall situation” of the banking system that includes an evaluation of the sector’s competitiveness by the end of 2026, according to a document seen by Bloomberg News.
The EU’s next scheduled review of banking regulation was due to be completed by 2028, but France, Germany and Italy have been intensively lobbying for such a review to take place more urgently, arguing that Europe must act to close the gap between its lenders and US rivals.
The move comes as US President Donald Trump has promised to ditch large swaths of regulation as part of his plans to stoke economic growth in the country. Regulators around the world now fear that the Trump administration could scrap parts of its plans to implement an update of stricter capital standards known locally as Basel Endgame.
The EU implemented most of its version of those rules at the beginning of this year. The fear is that US banks, helped by looser regulations, will more easily be able to win business and dominate the banking landscape around the world.
“The Commission will continue assessing developments in banking markets to ensure swift reaction whenever financial stability, the internal market, or international competitiveness of the EU banking sector is threatened,” the Commission said in the draft communique seen by Bloomberg.
A spokesperson for the European Commission declined to comment.
The confidential document also hinted at plans for single supervision of Europe’s capital markets though it stopped short of suggesting that Europe’s main supervisor for such activities — the European Securities and Markets Authority — assume the same powers held by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Delivering single supervision in capital markets will require a new balance between supervisory responsibility at EU and national levels,” the document said, suggesting European supervisory agencies “make better use of their existing supervisory convergence tools to achieve more integrated and harmonised supervision.”
It also promised to follow up with proposals “to achieve more unified supervision of capital markets as indicated in the Competitiveness Compass, including by transferring certain tasks to the EU level.”
--With assistance from Max Ramsay.
