In a speech 'How to deal with emerging pan-European financial institutions?' given on 3 November, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa of the ECB said the regulatory and supervisory framework that is now in place can meet the challenges. The condition, however, is that the framework's potential is exploited to the maximum. The keys to achieve this are, he said, the development of a single rule book and supervisory convergence.

"Let me start with the single rulebook. By this I mean a streamlined, uniform and