BANKING SECTOR AS MIRROR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - CLUSTERING EURO AREA

European monetary union (EMU) has been already in the second decade of its existence. We observe that the euro area is heterogeneous and few imbalances occurred during previous years. The most discussed imbalances are connected with different macroeconomic development of member countries and divergent participation in trade and capital flows. The different economic development should be reflected also in banking sector of individual member countries, especially in its balance sheets. Gradual adopting of euro led to creation of one big European bank market which uses one currency euro, but still we can find a lot of differences between individual banking systems of member countries which are results of previous development. A lot of new regulation is prepared for all banks in euro area after 2008. The main aim of this paper is to deal with individual banking sectors across euro area find out if banking sectors are similar and to find possible clusters among them.