The impact of European monetary integration on M&A volume in the context of the banking market consolidation

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the banking sector in Europe has undergone significant changes in terms of regulations and market structure, which resulted in a significant increase in M&A transactions. The rise of M&A activity was also a consequence of fundamental changes in the external environment, such as introduction of the euro, technological progress and changing customer demand. The aim of this contribution is to compare the impact of the integration of the countries in the European Monetary Union on the volume (value) and number of realized M&A. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to verify three individual hypotheses. The results of the analysis did not confirm differences in the volume and number of M&As between EMU and non-EMU countries (with the exception of 2 years).