ECB should monitor fewer financial institutions directly, demand central bankers

The central bankers urge a newly founded ECB-Task Force to check changes to the criteria, according to which it is determined whether a bank is « significant » and therefore must be supervised by Frankfurt and not must be supervised by the national authorities, said people who wanted to remain anonymous with the matter.

Bloomberg reported that the ECB called a group under the direction of some of its most influential central bank presidents to simplify banking regulation.

Such a reform is likely to go through a difficult legislative process. A significant reduction in the number of banks directly supervised by the ECB would be the largest realignment of the supervisory authority since its foundation before it was founded over a decade. The background is the increasing concern that Europe falls behind and its bureaucracy is an obstacle to growth.

Bank regulation should be intelligent and proportionate

The committee will soon come together to come together, and it is still unclear what the result of his efforts will ultimately lead, some of the informed people said. The members of the Task Force had made it clear to their colleagues that it was not their intention to reduce the solvability requirements for European banks, the informed persons said.

A spokesman for the ECB rejected a statement.

« It is important that the banking regulation is intelligent and proportionate, » said Olli Rehn’s governor of Finland, Olli Rehn on Monday. « We always have to find a careful balance between financial stability and innovation. »

Rehn is a member of the Task Force, as Bloomberg reported on Saturday. In his statements, he warned of « deregulation », especially with regard to the capital buffers of the banks, which guarantee their crisis resistance. He also referred to the need for simplification, including an « excessive reporting obligation in some areas ».

ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos assured the members of the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday that there was no question to join a global race.

Same competitive conditions

« The ECB supports the efforts to simplify the regulatory framework, » he said. « However, this should not be confused with deregulation. The resilience of our financial system is largely due to the rules introduced since the global financial crisis. Financial stability is a global public good – it is in the interest of everyone and must remain the long -term goal. »

A reduction in the number of credit institutions that are supervised directly by the ECB could help to relieve the affected banks and relieve personnel at the central bank, said some of the people. This could be achieved by raising the balance sheet as significant or by including fewer banks from smaller countries, the people said.

Some of the people with whom Bloomberg spoke to assume that the members of the Task Force will have different views of the procedure, also with regard to the determination of whether banks are significant.

The establishment of the Task Force follows a controversial letter from the central bank presidents of Germany, France, Italy and Spain to the European Commission, in which they pronounced directly for a « comprehensive review » of the rules in order to ensure « equal competitive conditions » with other important jurisdictions.