ECB chief Christine Lagarde said Monday that cross-border banking mergers in Europe were "desirable" to boost their competitiveness, despite mounting German opposition to a potential tie-up between Commerzbank and Italy's UniCredit.
"Cross-border mergers (between) banks that can actually compete at the scale, at the depth and at the range with other institutions around the world, including the American banks or the Chinese banks, is in my view desirable," the European Central Bank president told the European Parliament.
