Paper #509

Title:

Cross-border banking in Europe: An empirical investigation

Author:

Josep García Blandón

Date:

October 2000

Abstract:

This paper investigates bilateral trade in banking services within the European Union. The attention has been addressed to two main issues. First, to test the bank's motivations for setting up the different forms of overseas offices, and secondly, to assess the importance of barriers to entry across national European banking systems. Empirical results confirm the existence of different motivations for establishing representative offices, branches and subsidiaries in foreign locations. In addition, evidence has been achieved about the importance of non-regulatory barriers that could make difficult the existence of a single European market for banking services.

Keywords:

Cross-border banking, barriers to entry and form of representation

JEL codes:

G21

Area of Research:

Finance and Accounting

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