The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a public consultation on its revised policies for applying options and discretions available in EU banking law. The revisions, necessitated primarily by the new EU banking package, the Capital Requirements Regulation III (CRR III) and the Capital Requirements Directive VI (CRD VI), aim to improve transparency, consistency, and effectiveness in the exercise of these supervisory tools. The consultation will end on 10 January 2025.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a two-track strategy to integrate Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) into central bank money settlement systems. The short-term track (Pontes) aims to connect DLT platforms with ECB's TARGET Services by late 2026, while the long-term track (Appia) focuses on long-term ecosystem development. The initiative follows testing conducted in 2024 involving €1.6bn in transactions across nine jurisdictions, which identified legal and technical challenges requiring resolution.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched an innovation platform to collaborate with approximately 70 market participants—including merchants, fintech companies, start-ups, banks, and other payment service providers—to explore digital euro payment functionalities and innovative use cases. This initiative, following a call for interest in October 2024 that received over 100 applications, is designed to replicate the envisioned digital euro ecosystem by providing the technical support and infrastructure necessary for European intermediaries to develop forward-looking digital payment features. The platform is divided into two workstreams: pioneers and visionaries. The findings from both workstreams will be consolidated in a report intended to inform the ECB’s ongoing work on the digital euro project, with publication expected later in 2025.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a pilot project to facilitate research access to data collected from the financial sector. This initiative aims to promote independent research, enhance cross-country economic analysis, and deepen the understanding of financial dynamics within the euro area. Academic researchers will be granted access to anonymised data on balance sheets and interest rates from individual banks in the euro area. The pilot project will test the effectiveness and convenience of different access modes over 18 months, after which the potential establishment of a permanent research access infrastructure will be assessed.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published its opinion on proposed amendments to the EU Securitisation Regulation (EU) 2017/2402, the Capital Requirements Regulation (EU) 575/2013 (CRR), and the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 on the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR). Adopted on 11 November 2025, the opinion responded to requests from the Council of the EU and the European Parliament. The ECB supports the overall objective of strengthening the EU’s securitisation framework to improve financial stability, market functioning, and risk transfer from banks to investors. It also endorsed reforms to promote simple, transparent, and standardised (STS) securitisations but cautioned that complex or synthetic structures could increase systemic and procyclical risks if not properly managed.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published a speech by Frank Elderson, Member of its Executive Board and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board, delivered at the ECB and European University Institute Banking Governance High-Level Seminar ‘Board of the Future’. The speech outlines the ECB’s efforts to simplify the supervisory framework for banks while maintaining resilience and provides clarity on how regulated firms should distinguish between binding regulatory rules, supervisory expectations, and good practices.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has detailed reforms to its Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) in its latest Supervision Newsletter. Following a 2023 external review, the changes aim to enhance efficiency while maintaining supervisory quality. Key reforms include streamlined decision formats focusing on severe findings, a new tiered approach to supervisory findings from July 2025, and enhanced Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) assessment procedures. The reforms will be implemented gradually from H2 2024 and finalised for the 2026 SREP cycle.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published an occasional paper on the evolution of the supervisory reporting framework for the EU banking sector. It describes the historical and current EU institutional settings, including the role of the European Banking Authority (EBA) reporting framework and the role of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), and discusses future evolution options.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued a statement announcing its plans to enhance its floor methodology for assessing capital buffers for Other Systemically Important Institutions (O-SIIs) to incorporate a banking union perspective, considering the systemic importance of O-SIIs for the entire banking union. This addition to the existing national perspective aims to promote consistency in the loss-absorption capacity of O-SIIs and contribute to financial stability within the banking union. The enhanced methodology will be phased in from 1 January 2025, with full implementation by 1 January 2028.

The European Central Bank has postponed the amendment to the TARGET Guideline, which would have permitted non-bank payment service providers to access the TARGET system. The postponement arises from delays in certain euro area countries transposing the required amendments to the Settlement Finality Directive and the Payment Services Directive into national legislation. The amendment, as set out in Decision ECB/2025/2, is scheduled to take effect in October 2025, addressing legal uncertainties regarding the eligibility of non-bank payment service providers for accessing payment systems such as T2 for standard payments and TIPS for instant retail payments. National central banks maintain the ability to grant access to other national payment systems in jurisdictions where the relevant legislative amendments have been implemented, and non-bank payment service providers are advised to consult their respective national central banks for further information.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published the results of its annual Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) for 2024 for the European banks under its direct supervision, together with its supervisory priorities for 2025-2027. Internal governance, risk management and operational resilience remain key areas of concern.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published its less significant institutions (LSIs) supervision report for 2024. The report notes that the shift in the interest rate environment has helped LSIs improve profitability and capital levels over the past two years thanks to higher net interest margins. At the same time, there are ‘persistent issues in parts of the LSI sector, such as pressure to modernise banking business models, decreased credit demand, increased funding costs and an expected deterioration in credit quality’.