- Fees include €559 million in expected supervision costs plus €15.3 million for 2018 deficit
- 2019 fee increase largely due to greater number of supervised banks owing to Brexit
- Costs of regular supervisory tasks stable
The European Central Bank (ECB) estimates that €559 million will be spent on the prudential supervision of banks in 2019. However, total fees will be €576 million to cover a €15.3 million deficit carried forward from 2018 and owing to adjustments to individual fees, amounting to €1.7 million, resulting from changes in banking structures.
Banks that are directly supervised by the ECB will pay 91% of the fees and the remaining 9% will be paid by banks that are indirectly supervised by the ECB.
The increase in the cost estimate (from €502.5 million for 2018 to €559.0 million for 2019) mainly reflects staff increases for banks relocating or growing as a result of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU (Brexit) and the corresponding preparatory assessments. In addition, the ECB is currently undertaking a comprehensive assessment of six Bulgarian banks with a view to conducting negotiations on close cooperation with Bulgaria. Moreover, the restructuring of the Italian cooperative banking sector will lead to additional costs.
The overall fee estimate for 2019 of €576 million is significantly higher than the fee estimate for 2018 (which was €474.8 million). This is a consequence of ex-ante invoicing based on cost estimates. In previous years ECB Banking Supervision carried over surpluses from earlier years (which reduced the overall fee), whereas 2018 ended with a €15.3 million deficit that is incorporated into the fee estimate for 2019.
More information on the total annual fees can be found on the ECB’s banking supervision website.
Banks will receive their individual fee notices in October 2019. At present, a public consultation on the fees framework, including a move to invoicing ex-post instead of ex-ante, is underway.
Notes:
- The individual fee for each bank is determined on the basis of the bank’s importance and risk profile, using annual fee factors supplied by all supervised banks with a reference date of 31 December of the preceding year. The supervisory fee is set at the highest level of consolidation within Member States participating in the Single Supervisory Mechanism. It comprises a minimum fee component payable by all banks, accounting for 10% of the amount to be recovered, and a variable fee component for the allocation of the residual 90% of the costs. For the smallest significant banks, with total assets of €10 billion or less, the minimum fee component is halved.
Source: https://www.ecb.europa.eu
