Multilateral trade policy in the WTO

In the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO), well over a hundred countries negotiate the mutual opening of their economies, among other things also for banking services.

The Association of German Banks has published a

brochure on the "Liberalisation of banking services in the WTO"
(with an abbreviated English version).

The brochure gives an overview of the WTO and discusses the content of a new comprehensive round of negotiations after the failure of the Seattle ministerial conference, which would go beyond the already agreed negotiations in the agricultural and services sectors. The clearly predominating economic benefits from liberalisation are emphasised. An analysis of the GATS framework for services and the first Financial Services Agreement of 1997 is followed by a plea for a further opening of the banking sectors of the WTO member countries in the upcoming negotiations in the field of services ("GATS negotiations"). The need for liberalisation for industrialised countries is seen mainly in the field of cross-border distance selling (e-banking), for emerging countries in their law governing the right of establishment for foreign banks and for all participants in the reduction of restrictions on prudential grounds by increasing mutual recognition of the quality of domestic banking supervision.

Links and Literature

Documents as PDFs:
Executive summary [58 KB]
The abbreviated English version [396 KB]
The German brochure [397 KB]