Co-operative Banking Groups in Europe: Comparative Analysis of the Structure and Activity

The aim of this paper is to show the situation of the main European co-operative banking groups (or systems) through the analysis of particular aspects of their structure and the activities and services they offer, in order to compare these groups with the Spanish case to check if the different ways of dealing with these aspects agree, and under what circumstances or how they are developed. This analysis is also intended to identify the decision-making and economic linking relations set up between credit co-operatives and the centralised services structures which work within the co-operative banking groups.