European Union finance officials agreed to tighten oversight of banks and increase crisis cooperation,

The finance ministers and central bankers signed an accord yesterday at Brdo, near Ljubljana, Slovenia, to create links among the supervisors of multinational financial companies and set guidelines for responding to market disruptions.
The plan, born from a 2006 crisis simulation that exposed confusion in a cross-border financial meltdown, gained urgency as subprime-related losses and writedowns mounted to more than $77 billion at EU banks, four of which have needed rescues.
``Decisive steps needed to be taken,'' Slovenian Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk said at a news conference after the signing. Regulators ``are obliged now to cooperate in normal times and in times of crisis.'' Charlie McCreevy, EU financial-services commissioner, said existing arrangements were inadequate to deal with a bailout such as at Northern Rock Plc of the U.K. or IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG of Germany, if the bank had major cross-border business.
UBS AG of Switzerland -- not an EU member -- has written off $38 billion, in the biggest hit sparked by an increase in defaults by lower-rated homebuyers in the U.S.
The new EU plan commits regulators to set up monitoring groups for big banks such as Deutsche Bank AG and insurers including Allianz SE. The accord also covers stock exchanges, which are reaching across borders with tie-ups such as London Stock Exchange Group Plc's acquisition of Borsa Italiana SpA last year.