The Concept of Integrated Financial Supervision and Regulation of Financial Comglomerates in Germany and the United Kingdom

The merger of the banking, insurance and securities supervisors into a single authority has become a world-wide trend over the last decade. This study explores from a comparative legal perspective how the concept of integrated supervision has been implemented in Germany and the UK and what its implications for the regulation of financial conglomerates are. The comparative analysis explains the differences in the regulatory design in Germany and the UK in terms of historical, economical, cultural, and political factors. Furthermore, it provides evidence that an integrated supervisory structure that comes into being through an administrative merger of sectoral authorities without being fixed by harmonisation of the different supervisory objectives, methods and rules can lead to incoherent, complex and intrusive regulation. Such a structure may not be able to reap the alleged benefits of the integrated financial supervision. This book is targeted at scholars, practitioners and anyone else who is interested in financial regulation.