EUにおける大銀行の経営戦略の変化と銀行制度の調和

―金融機関の「大口株式保有（qualifying holdings）」に関する規制に着目して―

抄録

　This article deals with a case where the discretionary power of the host country’s authority on the M&A of banks has been restricted by the amendment of the provisions on the qualifying holdings of the EU Banking directive.

　Previous research on the harmonization of EU bank regulations has focused on the fact that the European Commission and Member States have promoted regulatory harmonization and that Member States with different banking systems have conflicted or compromised over harmonization of regulations, but it is often outside the analysis that not only the European Commission and Member States but also EU banks are interested in harmonizing the banking system and are trying to promote harmonization of banking regulation. Therefore, the author’s aim is to focus on the large banks as well as the European Commission and Member States as important actors in harmonizing the EU banking regulation.

　This paper uses the “assessing the degree of preference attainment” approach in “interest group theory” which is a related field of policy process theory. Then, to compare the preferences of each actor （the European Commission, member countries, large banks and small and medium size banks） with the consequences of regulatory changes. The Second Banking Directive （1989） granted discretionary powers to the host country regarding the review of the bank merger by the article on qualifying holdings. At that time this was consistent with preferences of banks and Member States who had been seeking protection and the development of domestic banks. In contrast, since the end of the 1990s, large banks in the EU have tried to internationalize through cross-border M&A. As a result, host country intervention is regarded as a barrier to entry and the preference of large banks has shifted to restricting the authority to examine qualifying holdings by host countries. The preference of such a large bank was rather consistent with that of the European Commission. Finally, along with the preferences of the major banks and the European Commission, the EU Banking Directive was revised in 2007 resulting in the review authority of the Member States being largely restricted. This paper concludes that harmonization of bank regulation in the EU has been realized in the form of restricting the examiner’s authority to exercise large share holdings by host countries as a result of the interaction between the management strategy of the large bank and the policy of the European Commission.