EU structural financial indicators: end of 2023

07 June 2024

• Number of bank offices continued to decline in most EU Member States, by 3.09% on average
• Number of bank employees declined by 0.81% on average
• Degree of banking sector concentration continues to differ widely across countries

The European Central Bank (ECB) has updated its dataset of structural financial indicators for the banking sector in the European Union (EU) for the end of 2023. This annual dataset comprises statistics on the number of offices and employees of EU credit institutions, data on banking sector concentration in each Member State and data on foreign-controlled institutions operating in the EU.

The structural financial indicators show a further decline in the number of bank offices in the EU, averaging 3.09% across Member States. Decreases were observed in 24 of the 27 countries, ranging from -0.17% (Spain) to -12.46% (Belgium). The total number of offices in the EU was 129,418 at the end of 2023, of which 82.2% were located in the euro area.

In the course of 2023, the number of bank employees fell in 15 of the 27 Member States (Chart 1), with an average drop of 0.81% across all countries. The decline in the number of bank employees observed in most Member States since 2008 seems to have levelled off in 2023.

The data also indicate that the degree of banking sector concentration (measured by the share of assets held by the five largest banks) continues to vary considerably between EU Member States (Chart 2). At national level the share of total assets of the five largest credit institutions ranged from 32.34% (Luxembourg) to 95.58% (Greece) at the end of 2023, while the EU average was 68.6%.

The structural financial indicators are published by the ECB on an annual basis.

Chart 1

Number of employees of credit institutions in the EU

(thousands)

Chart 2

Share of assets held by the five largest banks

(percentages)

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Notes:

• Tables containing further breakdowns of structural financial indicator statistics are available on the ECB’s website at ECB Data Portal.
• Structural Financial Indicators data are available in the ECB Data Portal.
• Hyperlinks in the main body of the press release lead to data that may change with subsequent releases as a result of revisions.