ECB publishes revised supervisory fee framework

17 December 2019

• Less significant banks with total assets of €1 billion or less to benefit from lower fees
• Administrative burden for most banks reduced
• Revisions follow public consultations with industry

The European Central Bank (ECB) has today published its amended Regulation on supervisory fees, which is the outcome of two public consultations. It has also updated the related Decision on the data used to calculate annual fees. The revised framework will apply from the 2020 fee period onwards.

The changes mainly concern the individual fees the ECB charges the banks it supervises and the timing of their collection. Starting from the 2020 fee period, the ECB will reduce the minimum fee for smaller less significant institutions (LSIs). To be eligible, an LSI must have total assets of €1 billion or less. Around two-thirds of LSIs will benefit from this change.

Other changes include the move to ex post invoicing, which means that banks will now be invoiced on the basis of actual costs incurred by the supervisor rather than estimated costs. The ECB will also reuse existing supervisory data to calculate fees, removing the need for a separate data collection process for most banks.

From now on the ECB will collect the fees in the second quarter of the following year for the 12 months ending in December. Fees for the 2020 fee period will therefore be collected in the second quarter of 2021.

The ECB will regularly communicate with the banks to guide them through the changes.

For media queries, please contact Elizabeth Tepper +49 69 1344 3595

Note

• The ECB charges an annual fee to all supervised banks to cover the costs of its supervisory tasks and responsibilities. The fee is calculated according to the bank’s importance and risk profile. In principle, bigger banks with a higher risk profile pay higher fees.