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Progress on the retail side has been extremely limited judging by certain indicators, the paper states, and not much change can be expected in the coming years in the structure of retail financial markets.
The main instrument left at EU level to create a more integrated retail financial market is competition policy, but the problem of high concentration is mainly at a national level, meaning that it is up to national authorities to react, and EU action under antitrust policy is by nature ad-hoc and ex-post. Hence structural change can only be expected to happen slowly over time.
The EU has missed a golden opportunity to advertise its retail financial market agenda more broadly among European citizens. The 1999 Financial Services Action Plan was essentially about wholesale financial markets. EU work on SEPA, UCITS and consumer credit are not known beyond a limited circle of specialists.
The EU should also formally align the objectives of financial supervision and propose to make financial education a task for the authorities in all the member states. This would at the same time raise the awareness amongst consumers of the benefits of the single market, the paper recommends.