In February 1988, the City Liaison Committee commissioned a survey by the Bank of England on preparations within the UK financial services industry for the completion of the single European market. The survey, which was carried out in the period February to November 1988, was based on a written questionnaire and on a series of follow-up interviews with a sample of respondent firms.
The primary purposes of the survey were to raise awareness within the UK financial services sector of the planned completion of the internal market in Europe, and to promote a dialogue about it between financial institutions and the authorities. Partly by means of the survey, it was hoped to build up a body of data on related issues, to ensure that the UK authorities were fully aware of the concerns of the UK firms, and therefore better able to advance UK interests most effectively in the development of European Community legislation.
This article is a synthesis of the Bank's report on the replies to its written questionnaire (some four hundred responses were received from a wide range of suppliers of financial services) and on its bilateral discussions with fifty-three of these institutions. The article concentrates on major themes emerging from the survey and is mainly, and deliberately, a synthesis of market views. It concludes with a Bank assessment on certain key issues.
The single European market survey of the UK financial services industry