THE HEAD of the EU’s new banking authority has warned that he plans to use the “true power” of a single set of rules to impose more uniform oversight on banks.

The move potentially emasculates national regulators. Some bankers fear it may harm innovation and competitiveness.

Andrea Enria, chairman of the European Banking Authority, said the financial crisis had highlighted the weakness of consensual efforts to co-ordinate banking regulation in Europe. “I think now it has to be a little bit more top-down,” Mr Enria told the Financial Times in his first interview since being confirmed as the agency’s chairman.

“The senior people here should engage in real policy discussions, take decisions and make things happen. If we start having regulatory competition again, it will be havoc.”

As secretary-general of the EBA’s predecessor, Mr Enria said he tried five years ago to get national regulators to boost banks’ liquid assets and harmonise their rules on bank capital. But the initiative proved contentious and the Committee of European Banking Supervisors was still talking when the 2008 crisis hit.