Banking between two crises

The pandemic may prove to have the same effect on the financial sector as on the EU as a whole – it will accelerate integration. As the EU is proposing to double its budget, so may the crisis help to create a truly European financial market. The EU’s reaction will create spill-overs in other fields and allow the EU to take centre stage in financial markets, ensuring that many well-known obstacles will finally be tackled. But the crisis has also revealed that further competition is coming to one very crucial function of banks: payments.