Реферат: Европейская денежная система
These factors will increase competition, exert pressure on profitability and oblige banks to reconsider their strategies. Such effects are already visible throughout the EU. They produce changes in organisation, new products and services, mergers, strategic alliances, co-operation agreements, etc. They also involve strategic risks, because the pressure for profitability and some losses of revenue due to the euro, for example from foreign exchange, may push some banks to seek more revenue from unfamiliar business or highly risky geographical areas. Inadequate implementation of new technologies or failure to reduce excess capacity may also affect banks' long-term viability. In the short term, the structural adaptation process could be made more difficult by the combination of factors like the protracted financial difficulties of Asia and Russia, or the preparations for the year 2000.
IV. CURRENT SUPERVISION
13. Against the background of the institutional framework and the industry scenario I have outlined, let me now turn to the functioning of banking supervision in the euro area. Two preliminary observations. First, the objective of financial stability pursued by banking supervisors is only one in a range of public interests, which also includes competition policy and depositor and investor protection policy. Second, current supervision and crisis management involve different situations and procedures and will therefore be examined in sequence.
14. Starting with current supervision, let me consider banking regulation first. As observed earlier, the regulatory platform for the euro area banking industry combines harmonised rules with country-specific (non-harmonised, but mutually recognised and hence potentially competing) rules.
The harmonised part of the platform includes most of the key prudential provisions that have been developed in national systems over the years. More than 20 years ago (1977), the 1st Banking Co-ordination Directive adopted a definition of a credit institution and prescribed objective criteria for the granting of a banking licence. In 1983 the first Directive on carrying out supervision on a consolidated basis was approved, and in 1986 the rules relating to the preparation of the annual accounts and the consolidated accounts of banks were harmonised. In 1989 the 2nd Banking Co-ordination Directive (which became effective on 1 January 1993) marked the transition from piecemeal to comprehensive legislation, introducing, inter alia, the principle of "home country control". A number of other specific directives have subsequently addressed the main aspects of the regulatory framework - notably, own funds, solvency ratios and large exposures. A Directive imposing deposit guarantee schemes supplemented the legislation in support of financial stability. All in all, the European Union, including the euro area, now has a rather comprehensive "banking law" consistent with the Basle Committee's rules and with the 1997 Core Principles of Banking Supervision.
The country-specific, non-harmonised, part of the platform is also quite relevant and very diversified. It includes, among other things, the different organisational arrangements for the conduct of banking supervision (central bank, separate agency or a mixed arrangement); the tools used by banking supervisors (e.g. supervisory reporting, on-site inspections); provisions for the liquidation and restructuring of banks; and the definition and legal protection of financial instruments and contracts. Even the key notion of a regulated market is harmonised only to a very limited extent.
15. Such "neutrality" and "incompleteness" on the part of the EU legislator with respect to key aspects that are normally incorporated in the regulatory framework is a unique feature of EU banking regulations and is likely to trigger a deregulatory process, pushed by competition among the national systems and the different financial centres in the euro area, and beyond that in the EU. Against the background of the increasing competition and other changes in the banking industry, one can expect that the regulatory platform will evolve in the years to come. Additional EU legislation may prove necessary to complete and strengthen the harmonised part. One important part of common legislation, namely the draft Directive on liquidation and re-organisation measures for credit institutions, has not yet been adopted and, indeed, has been stalled for years. This Directive is needed to bring legal certainty to the framework for banking crisis management. In this regard, it would be useful for the Eurosystem, if necessary, to be able to exclude counterparties from the single monetary policy on prudential grounds. Also, the non-harmonised part of the platform will come under pressure to converge, as I have just mentioned, through the process of "regulatory competition". Like any other rapidly changing industry, the banking sector will require careful attention by regulators. As indicated earlier, the ECB will have the possibility of contributing to the rule-making process through its advisory tasks under Article 105 (4) of the Treaty and Article 25.1 of the Statute of the ESCB.
16. On the whole, and taking a euro area perspective, the legislative-cum-regulatory platform of the banking industry, although rather unusual and very diversified in comparison with those of most currency jurisdictions, does not seem to present loopholes or inconsistencies that may hamper the pursuit of systemic stability. Seen from the point of view of the regulatory burden, it is a light system. It will become even more so if competition among national banking systems and financial centres encourages national regulators to free their banks from regulatory burdens that are not required by the EU Directives. Conversely, seen from the point of view of its flexibility, i.e. how quickly it can adapt to new situations, it is, on the contrary, a heavy system. This is the case both because the EU legislative process is slow (three years or even longer may be needed to pass Directives) and, perhaps more importantly, because many provisions are embodied in the Community primary legislation (i.e. Directives) rather than in Community secondary legislation (amendable through simpler comitology procedures).
The establishment of EMU does not seem to determine a need for revising the pillars of the current legal framework. What seems to be necessary, however, is a more flexible legislative procedure which allows for a faster and more effective revision of Community legislation, whenever needed in relation to market developments.
17. Let me now turn to the execution of banking supervision. It should immediately be recalled that supervision, contrary to regulation, is a national task, exercised by what the jargon of the Directives calls the "competent authority". Since the euro area has adopted a separation approach between supervisory and central banking functions, it is natural to examine first the functioning of the "euro area supervisor" (i.e. the co-operative system of national supervisors) and then turn to the tasks and needs of the "euro area central banker" (i.e. the Eurosystem).
18. The euro area supervisor can be regarded as a rather peculiar entity composed of national agencies working in three modes: stand-alone, bilateral and multilateral. Let us briefly examine each of them.
The stand-alone mode is the one in which the supervisor exclusively operates in the national (or even local) context. Today it is by far the most predominant mode. In most cases, this approach is sufficient to achieve the objectives of banking supervision because most banks in Europe are operating in a context that does not even reach the nationwide market of the country of origin. Such a decentralised model is even more effective because it allows the efficient use of information that may not be available far from the market in which the bank operates. That is why it is actually applied even within countries. In Italy, for example, over 600 of the 900 licensed credit institutions at end-1998 were entirely supervised by the Banca d'Italia branch of the town in which the bank is licensed.
The bilateral mode involves co-operation between two supervisory agencies. It is used for cross-border supervision of the same type of financial institutions, such as credit institutions, or the supervision of different types of financial institutions operating in the same market, such as credit institutions and securities firms. The instrument that has been devised to organise bilateral co-operation between banking supervisors is the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). With the implementation of the 2nd Banking Co-ordination Directive, the Member States began to negotiate extensively MoUs in order to establish the necessary co-operation between "home" and "host country" authorities to supervise efficiently institutions that have cross-border activities or foreign country establishments.
By the end of 1997, 78 bilateral MoUs had been signed between the EEA banking supervisory authorities. The key aims of MoUs are to establish a regular exchange of information between national supervisory authorities. While the "gateways" for the exchange of information have been laid down in Community legislation, MoUs provide a practical framework for communication to be carried out between supervisors. Moreover, MoUs define procedures and reciprocal commitments between pairs of EU supervisors related to the various parts of the supervisory process, such as establishment procedures and on-site examinations.
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