This essay reviews a cornerstone of the European Banking Union project, the resolution of systemically important banks. The focus is on the inherent conflict between a possible intervention by resolution authorities, conditional on a crisis situation, and effective prevention prior to a crisis....

Mis-selling by banks has occurred repeatedly in many nations over the last decade. While clients may benefit from competition - enabling them to choose financial services at lowest costs - economic frictions between banks and clients may give rise to mis-selling. Examples of mis-selling are...

The Capital Markets Union-project of the European Commission aims for an increase of market-based debt financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), complementing bank lending. In this essay we argue that rather than focussing on pure non-bank lending, a reasonable mix of bank- and...

With the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in full swing, banks face a challenging environment. They will need to address disappointing results and adverse balance sheet restatements, the intensity of which depends on the evolution of the euro area economies. At the same time, vulnerable...