ABSTRACT
This Chapter focuses on capital market-related and retail financial services provided to firms and households. Several data sources are tapped to derive indicators of integration in these services in the euro area. Highly specialized professional skills are required in Capital market-related activities, and customers are often large financial or non-financial corporations, to whom several different financial products and services are offered at the same time. In the retail financial services area, financial institutions' counterparties are mainly households or small and medium-sized firms. The proximity of financial institutions to customers is very important, because clients are scattered in geographic terms and typically have little mobility. The cross-border provision of mutual fund products by euro area financial institutions is quite rare, as is evident from the number of notifications of foreign operations made by euro area Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities.
