Similar to restrictions in the United State’s controversial Volcker rule, which it drew upon, the European Commission on Wednesday proposed new rules to prohibit its biggest banks from engaging in proprietary trading. The rules empower supervisors to require banks to separate risky trading activities from their deposit-taking business if those activities could compromise financial stability.
“Today’s proposals are the final cogs in the wheel to complete the regulatory overhaul of the European banking system,” said Michel Barnier, commissioner for internal market and services, in a statement. The legislation, he said, deals with “the small number of very large banks which otherwise might still be too-big-to-fail, too-costly-to save, too-complex-to-resolve.”
