Recent decades have seen a considerable increase in labour productivity in the financial sector, measured by the ratio of lending or financial assets to employment. In terms of the cost-to-income ratio, Danish credit institutions are in the middle of the range, compared with other EU member states. In terms of efficiency, some of the Danish banks are fully able to match the most efficient foreign banks. However, some Danish banks – primarily in the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority's groups 3 and 4 – are some distance away from the most efficient Danish banks. The consolidation in recent years has helped to improve the Danish banking sector's average efficiency.