ANALYSIS OF THE BANKING SYSTEM‘S CONCENTRATION DEGREE IN EU COUNTRIES

This paper focuses on four main fields of interest. The first part of the study isdedicated to an analysis of the specialized literature with a view to highlighting our research area.The second part concentrates on recent trends in the evolution of bank concentration indexes. Thethird part consists of an analysis of the key-indicators which influence the degree of bankconcentration, while the last part of our paper establishes the relation between the Herfindahl indexand the key-indicators (Total assets, Number of credit institutions, Population and Gross domesticproduct at market price) with the help of the correlation indexes. At the end of the study we presentour conclusions. We find that the overall European banking market is not very concentrated.