European banks on the brink of an M&A boom

Investors want growth and are impatient to get it. Bank CEOs are feeling the pressure, so expect more M&A activity.

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.

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