Liberalization of Trade in Banking Services An International and European Perspective

The financial crisis struck with full force in the autumn of 2008. Very soon after the start of the crisis, culprits were sought. An important recurring argument was that liberalization of trade in banking services, as pursued at the European (within the EU) and international level (in the WTO), had seriously reduced the possibilities for governments to regulate and supervise the banking sector. This book examines the validity of this claim and considers how EU law and WTO law deal with the trade-off any policy-maker must make between stability and efficiency in the market for banking services. The book considers specifically the interaction between EU and WTO law because the EU is itself a Member of the WTO, next to its Member States. This implies that the EU must respect the obligations it undertook in the framework of the WTO when the EU determines its policy towards third-country banks.

General introduction; Part I. Policy Concerns Underlying Regulation and Liberalisation of Banking: 1. Role of banks as intermediaries; 2. Regulation of the banking sector; 3. Liberalisation in the banking sector; Part II. International Approach to Liberalisation of Trade in Banking Services: 4. Sources of international banking liberalisation and regulation; 5. Limitations on the right of WTO members to regulate the banking sector; 6. Limitations on the right of WTO members to supervise the banking sector; Part III. European Approach to International Trade in Banking Services and its Interaction with GATS: 7. Sources of EU banking law relating to third-country banks; 8. Regulation of credit institutions that are subsidiaries of third-country banks; 9. The supervision on credit institutions that are subsidiaries owned by a person in a third country; Conclusion.

Bart De Meester is Member of the Legal Service of the European Commission. He previously worked as an Associate at the Geneva office of Sidley Austin LLP and, prior to that, as a Legal Affairs Officer at the Trade in Services Division of the Word Trade Organization. He is also Associate Fellow of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies at the University of Leuven, Belgium.