Financial supervision in the EU: is there convergence in the national architectures?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review current trends in reforms of the supervisory architecture in European Union (EU) countries. Design/methodology/approach – Against the background of the debate on the advisability of further centralizing prudential supervision in the EU this paper develops a study of applied institutional economics, analyzing the financial supervisory architecture of each of the 27 EU countries and assesses their degree of institutional convergence. The paper investigate whether the recent wave of reforms are leading to a convergence of the national architectures. Findings – While the degree of supervisory convergence is low, there is no single superior model of bank supervision. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the debate on convergence of supervisory architectures in EU member countries.