Hello and welcome to another podcast associated with Emlex's best-of series.

If you're listening today, it means that somewhere on your computer screen,

you should see an article by MLEX's chief financial services correspondent John Rieger.

The article is a piece of analysis titled ECB looks beyond capital in urging banks to cut costs and merge.

My name is James Panicki.

I'm MNex's Brussels managing editor,

which is why John Rieger's ruminations come under my purview.

And I'm here to pull that article apart with the author himself.

John Riga, hello, John.

Hello.

Now, here's what your thesis amounts to. The European Central Bank has started to behave

like a life coach for Eurozone lenders. That is what they're doing. And the joke about being the

life coach is because essentially they're telling the banks go out, earn some more money,

clean house, maybe lose a little weight, maybe find a partner in a form of a merger.

It seems to, you seem to be alluding to the fact that the role of the ECB might be changing

or evolving to some extent.

It has.

In fact, the ECB was handed a huge responsibility after the financial crisis by being put in

charge of the banks in the Eurozone, the 19 countries using the Euro. The point of giving it to the financial crisis by being put in charge of the banks in the Eurozone, the 19 countries

using the Euro.

The point of giving the responsibility to the ECB is because, first of all, you need to have

a central authority who can actually compare what's going on in the different countries,

...