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 its supervisory tasks and responsibilities.
The ECB is responsible for the effective and consistent functioning of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) 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 countries participating in European banking supervision
- branches established in countries participating in European banking supervision
Who pays how much?
The ECB supervisory fee is linked to a bank’s importance and risk profile, i.e. its supervisory status.
Significant banks
Significant banks are directly supervised by the ECB and are therefore 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 smaller supervisory fee to the ECB.
Fee debtor
Who is the fee debtor?
The fee debtor serves as a contact point for 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.
How is a fee debtor nominated for a banking group?
All fee-paying institutions that are part of a banking group must nominate a single fee-paying bank that will act as the fee debtor on behalf of the whole group.
Banking groups nominate a fee debtor by sending a signed notification to the ECB by post or email. Such notification is only valid if:
- it states the name of the group covered by the notification
- it is signed by the fee debtor on behalf of all supervised entities of the group
Fee debtors are requested to submit their form no later than 30 September of the year concerned in order to ensure a smooth feeing process.
In the event of changes taking place within a banking group, a new fee debtor notification should be submitted to the ECB only if there are changes relating to:
- the head of the group
- the current fee debtor
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 the invoicing of supervisory fees
- the addressee and recipient of the fee notice issued by the ECB
- legally responsible for paying the supervisory fee by the due date
- responsible for paying interest on overdue payments for supervisory fees
The Regulation on supervisory fees sets out further details on who the fee debtor shall be in the case of supervised groups, fee-paying branches and fee-paying credit institutions.