The European Central Bank has published a broad set of decisions taken by its Governing Council in April 2026, highlighting major developments in digital finance, banking supervision, payments and financial stability across the euro area.
Among the key announcements was the publication of the ECB’s Annual Report 2025, outlining the institution’s activities and monetary policy actions over the past year. The Governing Council also confirmed changes to the remuneration of excess reserves held by banks at national central banks, simplifying the framework by aligning all excess reserve remuneration with the deposit facility rate from June 2026 onward.
The ECB continued to push forward its digital finance agenda. It approved agreements with standard-setting bodies including CPACE, nexo and Berlin Group for digital euro online payment standards, while also adopting rules governing the upcoming digital euro pilot project, scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027. The central bank further strengthened its tokenised finance strategy through the Appia Steering Group, which will oversee the development of tokenised wholesale central bank money projects such as Pontes and Appia.
In payments policy, the Eurosystem unveiled a new comprehensive payments strategy aimed at creating a more innovative and competitive European payments market while preserving the role of central bank money in an increasingly digital economy.
On financial stability, the ECB reviewed risks tied to non-bank financial intermediation and approved a new report proposing macroprudential reforms focused particularly on the asset management sector. It also released updated assessments of financial integration within the euro area and responded to a European Commission consultation on boosting the competitiveness of the EU banking sector.
In banking supervision, the ECB imposed a €6.2 million administrative penalty on BofA Securities Europe SA for incorrectly reporting market risk data. The central bank also announced reforms to streamline the approval process for banks’ internal credit risk models beginning in October 2026.
Additional decisions covered updates to securities holdings statistics, the continuation of the Integrated Reporting Framework project, legal opinions on EU financial legislation and governance appointments within the Eurosystem.
