Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis:

Yes, we had been dealing with and continue to deal with this issue. Since the crisis we have seen certain weaknesses in the organisation of the financial systems, so the financial sector integration has reduced and financial sector activities increasingly were taking place along national borders. It is certainly an issue. We are now looking at ways that we can promote such cross-border financial sector activity. Currently only 7% of European citizens use cross-border financial services. We are not talking about large-scale integration. Among other things, we are assessing cross-border loans, namely, what are the obstacles to cross-border loans. Our analysis shows it is mainly to do with loan enforcement frameworks. If a bank is to provide loans or mortgages with a collateral across a border in another EU member state, there is at least a perception of the financial sector in terms of the banks and their associated costs if there is a need for loan enforcement in case the loan becomes non-performing. We would work with the country, especially if the loans are not very big, to enforce as a collateral. We will bring forward some proposals in this area. We will put forward a proposal on accelerated extrajudicial collateral collection mechanism while providing safeguards to customers towards some kind of aggressive loan collection practices.

That could be one mechanism to address this obstacle in terms of cross-border loans. From the point of view of the European Union, we would be willing to see more financial integration, more cross-border financial services and therefore more competition, which eventually would result in lower interest rates for consumers. That is something we are very much willing to support and facilitate. It is part of our work on a retail financial services action plan.