--- title: European Savings Are Funding US Companies as the Euro Area Integrates Faster With America, ECB Says description: The ECB says euro area investment is integrating faster with the US than within Europe. What the Savings and Investments Union would change. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-07T20:07:03.289Z updated: 2026-11-07T20:07:03.301Z canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/european-savings-funding-us-companies-ecb image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-16594726.webp categories: Economy, Finance, EU Focus content_type: Analysis region: Europe publication: Sovereign Magazine schema_type: Article about: - type: Organization name: European Central Bank --- European savings are paying for more and more of the growth of American companies. Boris Vujčić, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, told the Central Bank of Ireland's Financial System Conference in Dublin on 2nd November that euro area countries are integrating faster with the United States than with each other. 'Strikingly, we are integrating faster with the United States than with each other,' he said in [his speech](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2026/html/ecb.sp.261102~70003226e9.en.html). 'As a result, European savings increasingly fund US companies.' ## What the ECB Found on Cross-Border Investment ECB estimates express the frictions on holding shares across borders as the equivalent of a tariff. Since 2014 those frictions inside the euro area have fallen by about 12 percentage points. Between the euro area and the US they have fallen by about 25 percentage points, roughly twice as much. Vujčić described a persistent home bias, with much of Europe's capital staying inside national borders while a growing share of European savings goes to markets outside the EU. [Reuters reported](https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/euro-zone-countries-are-integrating-faster-with-us-than-with-each-other-ecb-says-2026-11-02/) that national borders continue to split investment within the bloc. ## Why European Start-Ups Look Abroad for Money US venture capital funds invest about six times as much as funds based in the EU, according to the speech. Foreign funds fill part of the gap, and that makes it more likely that a successful European start-up moves its headquarters or its intellectual property abroad, or lists its shares outside the EU. If you run a European start-up, the deepest pools of growth money are still across the Atlantic, and the ECB's figures show the pull in that direction getting stronger. ## How Fragmented Markets Leave Europe Exposed In the US, about 70% of the shocks to a state's economic output are absorbed through markets and fiscal transfers, with capital markets doing most of the work. In the euro area the share is about 30%, and capital markets absorb only 5% to 10%. When one part of the euro area has a bad year, its own households and firms carry more of the loss. The speech also gave ECB estimates that barriers inside the EU single market act like a tariff of around 67% on goods and 95% on services. Vujčić described those figures as the upper end of the estimates. ## The Savings and Investments Union The EU's answer is the Savings and Investments Union, a plan to build a single capital market that could attract more of the €35 trillion EU households hold in savings, [Reuters reported in January](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/2026-is-eus-make-or-break-year-economic-reform-2026-01-20/). Much of that money sits in bank deposits, and the plan aims to move more of it into investment in European companies. The plan has moved forward this year. In March the EU's six biggest economies [backed centralised supervision of capital markets](https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/germany-five-other-biggest-eu-economies-back-centralised-market-supervision-2026-03-12/) after Germany dropped its objections. The ECB [backed the Commission's plan](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ecb-backs-eu-plan-centralise-financial-supervision-2026-04-10/) for joint supervision in April, and on 29th May Reuters reported that the six economies had [agreed on capital market supervision](https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/e6-agree-capital-market-supervision-says-germany-2026-05-29/). ## What the ECB Proposes Vujčić set out the steps the ECB sees as necessary: - A European deposit insurance scheme to complete the banking union, so that deposits are equally protected across the euro area. - Closer harmonisation of creditor hierarchies and insolvency rules. - Harmonised withholding taxes. - Cross-border banking groups able to operate across the euro area as a single jurisdiction, with capital and liquidity moving freely inside the group. - European payment infrastructure, including the [digital euro](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/digital-euro-2029-what-it-means-for-your-money) and wholesale settlement services such as [Pontes](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/ecb-pontes-tokenised-assets-central-bank-money). ## What It Means for Your Savings If your savings sit in a bank deposit, the Savings and Investments Union is designed to give you more and easier routes into European companies. If you invest through funds, part of your money may already be backing American companies, and the ECB's figures show that flow growing. The plan is part of the same push for European self-reliance as [Europe's tech sovereignty plan](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/eu-tech-sovereignty-five-months-on): keeping more European money at work in European firms. ## Savings and Investments Union Questions **Q: What is the savings and investments union?** The Savings and Investments Union is the European Union's plan to build a single market for savings and investment across its member states. It brings together the capital markets union and the banking union, and it aims to move more of the money EU households hold in bank deposits into productive investment in European companies. **Q: What is capital markets union?** Capital markets union is the EU project to let money for shares, bonds and other investments move freely across member states under common rules and supervision. It aims to give companies more ways to raise money beyond bank loans and to give savers more ways to invest. It now sits inside the wider Savings and Investments Union.