ING: This year, Europe will witness a wave of domestic bank mergers and acquisitions.

Glonghui, January 28th｜ING CEO Steven van Rijswijk stated that currently, European bank stocks are trading at about 1 times book value, or between 1 to 2 times, which is the range where mergers and acquisitions begin to occur. Both acquirers and targets need to seize this opportunity. He also pointed out that due to long-standing regulatory barriers to cross-border transactions, banking sector mergers and acquisitions may still be limited to domestic markets. Although Europe proposed the establishment of a banking union more than a decade ago, even within the eurozone's internal market, where the European Central Bank serves as the single supervisory authority, differences in capital and liquidity requirements still exist.