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Under the current European Union frameworks for dealing with banking problems, resolution of banks is seen as an exception to be activated only if liquidation under national insolvency proceedings would not be warranted. This is most notably the case when the bank provides critical functions to the economy, or when its liquidation might threaten financial stability. The two options - resolution and liquidation - differ substantially when it comes to the scope of legislation that is applicable to the use of public funds. The EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (2014/59/EU) covers resolution, while liquidation is regulated by national insolvency laws. The liquidations of Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza in Italy highlight how this two-tier framework raises important questions in the context of EU banking union. The first question is whether the definitions of critical functions and public interest - key elements in the context of liquidation - should be clarified. A second question is whether the current legal and regulatory situation within banking union ensures that similar banks can expect predictable equal treatment in case of failure. The author argues that there should be more clarity over the role that the concepts of critical functions and public interest play in Member States' decision to grant liquidation aid, as the current framework might give rise to situations in which the views of national authorities seem to contradict the Single Resolution Board's assessment. While the purpose of this Policy Contribution is not to provide a comprehensive overview of different national insolvency regimes, the author argues that the current diversity is a source of uncertainty about the outcome of liquidation procedures, for all participants. For banking union to function effectively, the framework should be changed to provide the same level of certainty in liquidation as there is expected to be in resolution.

Complementing Europe's bank-based system with deeper capital markets and more cross-border financial integration promises benefits, but despite long-running debate and policy action, financial system change remains slow. Fintech has the potential to change financial intermediation structures substantially. It could disrupt existing financial intermediation with new business models empowered by intelligent algorithms, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Lower costs and potentially better consumer experiences could be the driving forces. However, empirically, fintech remains at a small scale, especially in the European Union. Even the largest fintech market, in China, is of marginal size compared to overall financial intermediation. In the EU, much of fintech is concentrated in the United Kingdom. We argue that policymakers need to consider four questions urgently: (1) Develop a European or national fintech market? (2) What regulatory framework to pursue? (3) Should supervision of fintech be exercised at the European level? (4) What is the overall vision for the EU's financial system? Getting the answers to these questions right at an early stage of market development would be an opportunity to shape a stable and cost-efficient financial system. In contrast, late action could mean that Europe loses out to foreign competitors and misses an opportunity to improve financial intermediation in Europe.

The European Union's Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive foresees a "minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities" (known as MREL) that banks need to comply with in order to ensure the effectiveness of the bail-in tool. The details of how MREL should be constructed in practice are under discussion. We look at alternative ways to compute MREL, showing how the choice of the benchmark metric (risk weighted assets, total assets or leverage exposure) can change the allocation of requirements across banks. We also review MREL in light of the global effort to ensure future resolvability of banks, highlighting some differences with, and inconsistencies in relation to, the Financial Stability Board's total loss-absorption capacity (TLAC) measure.

Euro-area inflation has been below 1 percent since October 2013, and medium-term inflation expectations are well below 2 percent. Forecasts of the return to target inflation have proved wrong. The European Central Bank should act forcefully, but should undermine neither the major relative price adjustments between the euro-area core and the periphery that are needed, nor the ongoing process of addressing weaknesses in Europe's banking system. Reducing the deposit rate or introducing another long-term refinancing operation could be beneficial, but would be unlikely to change substantially inflation expectations. Government bond purchases would be significantly beneficial, but in a monetary union with 18 different treasuries, such purchases are difficult for economic, political and legal reasons. We recommend a monthly asset-purchase programme of €35 billion with a review of the amount after three months. EFSF/ESM/EU/EIB bonds, corporate bonds and assetbacked securities should be purchased, of which at least €490 billion, €900 billion and €330 billion respectively are suitables. Bonds of sound banks could be considered after the completion of the ECB's assessment of bank balance sheets. While bond purchases distort incentives and make the ECB subject to private and public sector pressure, with potential consequences for inflation, such risks need to be weighed against the risk of persistently low inflation.

Estimates of the recapitalisation needs of the euro-area banking system vary between €50 and €600 billion. The range shows the considerable uncertainty about the quality of banks' balance sheets and about the parameters of the forthcoming European Central Bank stress tests, including the treatment of sovereign debt and systemic risk. Uncertainty also prevails about the rules and discretion that will applyto bank recapitalisation, bank restructuring and bank resolution in 2014 and beyond. The ECB should communicate the relevant parameters of its exercise early and in detail to give time to the private sector to find solutions. The ECB should establish itself as a tough supervisor and force non-viable banks into restructuring. This could lead to short-term financial volatility, but it should be weighed against the cost of a durably weak banking system and the credibility risk to the ECB. The ECB may need to provide large amounts of liquidity to the financial system. Governments should support the ECB, accept cross-border bank mergers and substantial creditor involvement under clear bail-in rules and should be prepared to recapitalise banks. Governments should agree on the eventual creation of a single resolution mechanism with efficient and fast decision-making procedures, and which can exercise discretion where necessary. A resolution fund, even when fully built-up, needs to have a common fiscal backstop to be credible.

During the crisis the European Central Bank's roles have been greatly extended beyond its price stability mandate. In addition to the primary objective of price stability and the secondary objective of supporting EU economic policies, we identify ten new tasks related to monetary policy and financial stability. We argue that there are three main constraints on monetary policy: fiscal dominance, financial repercussions and regional divergences. By assessing the ECB's tasks in light of these constraints, we highlight a number of synergies between these tasks and the ECB's primary mandate of price stability. But we highlight major conflicts of interest related to the ECB's participation in financial assistance programmes. We also underline that the ECB's government bond purchasing programmes have introduced the concept of 'monetary policy under conditionality', which involves major dilemmas. A solution would be a major change towards a US-style system, in which state public debts are small, there are no federal bail-outs for states, the central bank does not purchase state debt and banks do not hold state debt. Such a change is unrealistic in the foreseeable future.

The crisis has underlined the strong interdependence between the euro-area banking and sovereign crises. To understand the role domestic banks have played in holding sovereign debt, a breakdown of government debt by holding sectors is required. The data shows that at the start of the crisis, most continental euro-area countries were characterised by the large size of their banks' portfolios of domestic government bonds, which were markedly larger than in the UK or the US. Consequently, concern about sovereign solvency was bound to have major consequences for banks. The structural vulnerability of euro-area countries has increased, reinforcing the sovereign/ banking crisis vicious cycle. All countries for which concerns about state solvency arose in recent years have seen a reversal in the previously steady increase of the share of government debt held by non residents. Germany, by contrast, has seen an increase in the share held by non residents. In the short term, these observations raise a question about the effectiveness of ECB provision of liquidity to banks as a means to alleviate the sovereign crisis. At a point when government bonds are considered risky assets, euro-area banks are faced with both balance sheet and reputational risks compared to their non-euro area counterparts, and may prove reluctant to increase this exposure further. In the longer term, the question is if and how euro-area regulators should set incentives to reduce banks' heavy exposure to sovereigns. This issue should be given more attention in European policy discussions on how to strengthen the euro area.