ECB to oversee banks of Europe

Common supervision of European banks, possibly by the European Central Bank, would help restore confidence and protect the financial system, ECB Governing Council member Panicos Demetriades said yesterday.

German business newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Friday that the European Commission would next month propose giving the ECB super-vision over all of the eurozone’s major banks.

Demetriades, who is also governor of the central bank of Cyprus, told the Cypriot newspaper Kathimerini that the eurozone faced “unprecedented challenges” and that such a banking union was expected to foster greater confidence in the bloc.