Who has to pay?
The supervisory fee is the amount each supervised bank pays annually to the ECB to finance the ECB's costs related to supervisory tasks and responsibilities.
The ECB is responsible for the effective and consistent functioning of the Single Supervisory Mechanism in its entirety, i.e. of the significant banks that it directly supervises and of the less significant banks that it indirectly supervises. All supervised banks are therefore obliged to pay.
These include:
- all banks established in the participating countries
- branches established in a participating country by a parent bank established in a non-participating country
Criteria for determining significance
Who pays how much?
The ECB supervisory fee is linked to a bank’s size and importance, i.e. its supervisory status.
Significant banks
Significant banks are directly supervised by the ECB and thus are required to pay a larger supervisory fee to the ECB.
Less significant banks
Less significant banks are directly supervised by their relevant national supervisor and therefore pay a lower supervisory fee to the ECB.
Criteria for determining significance
Fee debtor
Who is the fee debtor?
The fee debtor serves as a contact point towards the ECB for all communication related to the annual supervisory fee.
- In the case of a single entity that is not part of a banking group, the entity itself is the fee debtor.
- In the case of a group of supervised entities, members of the group have to nominate one entity to act as the fee debtor on behalf of the whole group.
What is the role of the fee debtor?
The fee debtor is:
- responsible for ensuring that the fee factors necessary for the calculation of the individual supervisory fees are provided
- the contact point for all communication from the ECB with regard to invoicing of supervisory fees
- the addressee and recipient of the fee notice issued by the ECB
- legally responsible for paying the supervisory fee within the due date
- responsible for paying interest on overdue payments for supervisory fees
Treatment of banking groups
All fee-paying institutions that are part of a banking group must nominate a single fee-paying bank that will act as a fee debtor on behalf of the whole group.
Banking groups nominate a fee-paying debtor by sending a signed notification to the ECB by regular post. Such notification is only valid if:
- it states the names of all supervised entities of the group covered by the notification
- it is signed on behalf of all supervised entities of the group
- it reaches the ECB within the given deadline
New fee debtor notification form
Simplified fee debtor notification form
Fee debtor contact details form
The Regulation on supervisory fees sets out further details about who is the fee debtor in the case of supervised groups, fee-paying branches and fee-paying credit institutions.