Convergence of national prudential supervision under the European Single Supervisory Mechanism

This dissertation starts with an overview of the recent and ongoing efforts to achieve greater convergence in national banking supervision within the European Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). However, the persistence of distinct national preferences on banking supervision has resulted in ongoing differences in the practice of banking supervision at the national level. More specifically, the supervision of Less Significant Institutions (LSIs) has remained under the direct control of national supervisors and to, a certain extent, under national law, thus allowing significant ongoing margin of manoeuvre on supervision. This dissertation examines the consequences of this margin for manoeuvre left to national supervisors, despite strong convergence pressures through post-financial crisis EU institutional developments. The analysis focus upon the national supervision of LSIs. The main research question guiding this work is, therefore: under what conditions do pre-existing national institutional configurations continue to determine the trajectory of national supervisory practice in the context of European-level convergence pressures (through the European Banking Authority and the SSM)? To answer this question, I use a four-part analytical framework based on, first, Europeanisation which provides insight into top-down processes of integration, second, Historical Institutionalism which provides an understanding of path dependency from earlier policy decisions shaping national supervisory institutions and practice, third, the Epistemic Communities approach and fourth Transnational Policy Network framework. Based on this combined analytical framework, I formulate the following hypothesis: the more discretion exercised by the national supervisor in relation to its government, the more likely the adoption of policies and practices that result in greater convergence with the rules and practices developed at the EU / Banking Union level. To test this hypothesis, I start with a