(Bloomberg) -- Commerzbank AG Chief Executive Officer Bettina Orlopp said Europe needs to make progress on creating a single market for banking services before it can have cross-border deals.
“You can’t create cross-border consolidation by consolidating institutions. You first need to have the environment for it, and the environment means that we need to finalize the banking union, which has not taken place so far,” Orlopp said Friday at an event hosted by the Institute of International Finance.
“One of the important topics is clearly still EDIS, so the EU deposit protection scheme, which we do not have, and that’s an important prerequisite,” she said.
Orlopp is leading the German lender as it contends with an unsolicited approach by Italian rival UniCredit SpA. Commerzbank has accelerated its strategic planning to prepare for a potential takeover offer.
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