INTRODUCTION
While the financial turmoil has left the business approach of ethical banks unchanged, as evidenced in the striking stability of their balance sheets, the pattern shown by big banks has substantially changed over this same period. These developments would tend to suggest the need to reform the business model of big banks. There is no clear empirical evidence that a banking system with a large number of small institutions would be any more stable than the system as it currently stands.
Besides, financing certain big projects would always require the existence of large international banks. Both types of financial institutions are in fact complementary. How to regulate the banking and financial sector is thus a complex and multifaceted issue. One cannot impose the same requirements on big international-oriented banks and small domestic banks. As this course has tried to demonstrate, both have a distinct business model