PARIS (Reuters) – Societe Generale Chief Executive Slawomir Krupa said on Wednesday that cross-border consolidation in Europe’s banking sector was “extraordinarily unlikely”, citing regulatory and structural reasons.
He was speaking at the annual general meeting of shareholders of the French bank, who questioned him about remarks by Emmanuel Macron.
The French president said this month in an interview with Bloomberg TV that the European banking sector needed more consolidation, appearing not to rule out a potential takeover of Société Générale by another European bank.
Slawomir Krupa said consolidation operations were “structurally limited in Europe” and “extremely unlikely for a range of reasons”.
“The first, of a regulatory nature: there are significant capital surcharges which are linked to the size of banking establishments,” he continued.
The second “fundamental” reason is the “non-completion of the banking union (…), all the restrictions linked to the circulation of cross-border liquidity”.
(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain, written by Jean Terzian)
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