THE MODELS OF FINANCIAL SUPERVISION AND REGULATION IN THE EU COUNTRIES

Financial supervision and regulation are some of the most important components of the financial stability in a national economy. The application of the appropriate infrastructure supervisory framework is of crucial importance for the financial system stability together with methods and instruments used. The first question when choosing a model or a combination of various structures refers to the decision on integrated supervision or the traditional concept of sectoral regulation. Since the traditional approach cannot respond to the growing trend towards financial system conglomerisation, supervisory bodies integration becomes a dominant infrastructural model of financial regulation. The development of financial regulation in the EU countries also followed the same pattern - institutional consolidation. This study hypothesizes that models of supervision that are applied in the new EU member states, including Croatia, effectively respond to the challanges of their financial systems that are predominantly influenced by financial conglomerates. The conflict between the relative underdevelopment of their financial systems and simultaneously high level of their networking and complexity of their financial institutions, poses significant challanges and requires constant search for new solutions.