Plan for Europe capital market

Proposals to create a US-style capital market across Europe to increase firms’ financing options could give European regulators more powers at the expense of the City of London, a European Union document showed.

The plan aims to create a so-called capital markets union by 2019 from Europe’s fragmented bond and stock markets. It outlines possible reforms to allow markets, rather than banks, to become the main source of cash for the region’s companies.

The aim is to build a capital market more on par with the US where public equity markets are almost twice the size of EU markets.