Banks operating in the main developed countries have been exposed, since the Seventies, to four significant drivers of change, mutually interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The first one is a stronger integration among national financial markets (such as stock markets and markets for interest rates and FX rates) which made it easier, for economic shocks, to spread across national boundaries. Such an increased integration has made some financial institutions more prone to crises, sometimes even to default, as their management proved unable to improve their response times by implementing adequate systems for risk measurement and control
