The IMF has called on French regulators to do more to reduce banks' dependency on wholesale funding, while warning that waning depositor and creditor confidence in Germany - owing to a "mutually reinforcing" combination of low growth and an unsettled financial regulatory framework - could trigger contagion beyond the country's borders.

In back-to-back staff reports published yesterday and today following the IMF's annual Article IV consultations, the fund urged France to do away with regulated