Book review : Bart De Meester, Liberalization of trade in banking services : an international and European perspective (Cambridge University Press 2014)

Abstract

Financial markets have not yet fully recovered from the 2007 and 2008 financial crisis. Whilst it is impossible to point to one isolated cause for the turmoil that spread across all of the major economies of the world, liberalisation of trade in banking services has been often accused of being one of the forces that pulled the trigger. By forcing governments to ease their regulation as regards access to their markets for foreign suppliers - so this recurring argument goes - trade liberalisation has tilted the balance of sovereignty in the domain of financial services towards international organisations and led to forced and unnecessary deregulation.