To the intense frustration of bankers across Europe, a combination of regulatory problems and executives keen to hang on to their own powerful positions is conspiring to limit banking consolidation.

Some analysts feel there has been too much haste since the introduction of the euro. Wednesday's collapse of a deal between Bank of Ireland and Britain's Alliance & Leicester was blamed by the British side on various factors, including Bank of Ireland's alleged desire to remove Alliance and Leicester chief executive Mr Peter White from the helm of the merged bank.

In France's great banking saga, there is by all accounts little love lost between the senior executives of BNP on the one side and its merger targets Societe Gene rale and Paribas on the other.

"If you look at mergers in general, not just in banking, most proposed mergers that fail do so because of management problems," said Mr Matthew Czep liewicz, European banking analyst at Salomon Smith Barney.

Egos may have got in the way of other mooted mergers, such as possible deals in Britain between Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays and between Standard Chartered and Barclays.

"Merging is by no means as straightforward as it may be presented," said Mr Keith Baird, European banking analyst at Enskilda Securities. Even in a merger that goes through with few problems, such as that earlier this year between Spain's Banco Santander and Banco Central Hispano to form BSCH, bankers are aware that the deal can just be the start of problems. Implementation can often take years to get right.

Regardless of whether bankers can reach a meeting of minds, banking regulators and supervisors often seem to have their own agenda, which some critics say has not caught up with the realities of the European banking scene.

In Italy, for example, where a raft of consolidation has already taken place, the proposed hostile takeover of Banca di Roma by San Paolo IMI fell foul of central bank governor Mr Antonio Fazio, who was worried that a hostile situation might threaten the stability of the whole banking system.

UniCredito Italiano later pulled its offer for BCI when the latter rejected the bid as hostile. This has left the latest round of Italian banking consolidation in tatters. Merger ideas in Britain have also fallen foul of regulatory problems and a current attempt by BSCH to link with Portugal's Banco Pinto e Sotto Mayor also runs the risk of being blocked.