Two’s a trickle, three’s a trend. And by that logic, following Santander’s acquisition of Abbey last year, UniCredit’s embrace of HVB this spring and ABN Amro’s recent capture of Antonveneta, it might take just one more cross-border M&A deal to set off a torrent in European banking.
The mood of expectation, the sense of an industry on the verge of being plunged into a new phase of development by perhaps a single ambitious deal, is growing every day.
Executives at the large banks now talk openly about plans for bolt-on acquisitions in specific business lines – wealth management, consumer finance – and in emerging markets such as central and eastern Europe, China and India.
They are...
