After months of telling us “It’s different in Europe”, ECB officials must be biting their nails this weekend as regulators and bank officials meet to try and find buyers for assets of Fortis. There is no pan-European regulator or insurance scheme like the FDIC, making European depositors even more vulnerable than their US counterparts. The ECB is not lender of last resort like the Federal Reserve so Europe has far fewer tools to deal with bank failures than the US. Remember that the next time you’re told by a central banker that there is no credit crunch in Europe.