[SeanLuke]

The number of countries in the EU seems to be not the best argument, though their distribution might be.

The USA has one bank for every 70617 people.

The EU has one bank for every 86637 people.

Italy is rather much more concentrated, having seen a huge decrease in unique banks over the last decade. It has one bank for every 134624 people.

[zmnd]

I shared the whole quote, but the goal was to just highlight that the number of banks is fairly similar.

I agree that the number of people is a better characteristic in this context, however the number of countries is important. EU has many different cultures, languages, regulations, so they have to have more banks. But looking at data, despite these considerations, EU still has worse competition. So still not sure what exactly parent meant.