(March 2 – 12:20 ET) – The Financial Times is reporting that a group of European industry executives is coming together to advocate the creation of a single market for financial services Europe.

An article in yesterday’s FT says the European Round Table of Financial Services has been founded by the top executives of 12 European financial institutions, and more will be invited to join.

The first chairman of the round table is Pehr Gyllenhammar, chairman of CGNU, the largest insurance group in the United Kingdom. Gyllenhammar is joined by executives from Axa, Deutsche Bank, Nordea, Assicurazioni Generali, ABN-Amro Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, UniCredito Italiano, Allianz and Fortis.

Gyllenhammar has experience with these sorts of initiatives. When he was executive chairman of Volvo back in 1983, he advocated the creation of the single European market. He is quoted as saying, “We are all convinced of the importance of supporting the completion of the single market in financial services, which will bring substantial benefits for consumers by promoting competition and consumer choice.”

The group will champion free competition on a level playing field with fully harmonized regulations and a single capital market, arguing that it will improve competition and consumer choice. “Ideally we would like to see one set of regulations across Europe — there’s no reason why we can’t have a common accountancy standard, for example, so we could all read the same profit and loss account.”
-IE Staff