ZURICH, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Switzerland's financial market supervisory authority FINMA on Wednesday said it had signed a cooperation agreement with Italian supervisory authority CONSOB and Italian national bank, Banca d'Italia, to intensify their cooperation.

"Thanks to this agreement, the authorities involved can carry out their supervisory activities even more effectively across borders. This increases legal certainty for supervised institutions operating in Italy and Switzerland," FINMA head Urban Angehrn said in a statement.

The agreement would help financial groups gain clearer legal certainty concerning their access to the Italian market, FINMA said.

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