Michel Barnier News

A "large number" of European Union member states would support only imposing losses on depositors over EUR100,000 during bank wind-downs as a last resort, EU financial-regulation chief Michel Barnier said Tuesday.

Switching bank accounts can often be complicated and time consuming - not any more.

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Michel Barnier, the European commissioner for the internal market and services, will on Wednesday launch plans to give every individual in the European Union the right to a basic bank account.

The E.U. commissioner in charge of financial services, Michel Barnier, has taken issue with a Federal Reserve proposal to require U.S. subsidiaries of foreign banks to comply with U.S. capital rules, kvetching that they would put European banks at a "competitive disadvantage" and "could spark a protectionist reaction." His remarks came in a letter ... (more)

A set of proposed rules by the Federal Reserve on foreign-bank supervision that will affect European banks doing business in the U.S. will duplicate work already done in Europe, create additional costs and risk a protectionist backlash, Michel Barnier , the European Union's financial services chief, warned in a letter to Ben Bernanke .

US plans to force overseas banks to hold billions of dollars more capital have drawn a sharp retort from the EU's top financial regulator, who warns it could "spark a protectionist reaction" and damage the global economy.

The $639 trillion global swaps market is starting to fragment because regulators are failing to agree on the cross-border reach of rules, nine overseas finance officials told U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew.