Oversight

The Eurosystem promotes the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing and settlement systems under its oversight mandate.

These systems play important roles not only in the stability and efficiency of the financial sector and the euro area economy as a whole, but also in the smooth conduct of the single monetary policy of the euro area and in the stability of the single currency.

The Eurosystem’s oversight mandate also covers electronic payment instruments, schemes and arrangements, as their use requires a high degree of safety and efficiency to maintain confidence in the euro and promote an efficient economy.

• Eurosystem oversight report 2020
• Eurosystem oversight policy framework
• CPSS-IOSCO Principles for financial market infrastructures (PFMIs)

Scope of oversight

Eurosystem oversight covers different types of financial market infrastructures and other entities, as well as electronic payment instruments, schemes and arrangements:

• payment systems (systemically important payment systems and non-systemically important payment systems)
• electronic payment instruments, schemes and arrangements
  
• TARGET2-Securities (T2S)  
  
• securities settlement systems and central counterparties
  
• critical service providers
  
• correspondent and custodian banks 

Conducting oversight

The Eurosystem has set out its oversight objectives for safety and efficiency in specific oversight regulations, principles, guidelines and recommendations which are relevant for the overseen infrastructures and entities, as well as for electronic payment instruments, schemes and arrangements.

In conducting its oversight tasks, the Eurosystem follows a three-step process:

• collecting relevant information
• assessing the information against the oversight objectives
• inducing change where necessary

Roles within the Eurosystem

Oversight responsibilities are assigned to the Eurosystem, which comprises the ECB and the national central banks (NCBs) of the euro area.

To achieve effective and efficient oversight, the Eurosystem shares these responsibilities in a way that enables it to benefit from its decentralised structure while ensuring that its oversight activities are coordinated and its policy stance consistently applied throughout the euro area.

To conduct oversight of individual financial market infrastructures, the Eurosystem assigns primary oversight responsibility to the central bank that is best placed to undertake this role, either because of its proximity to the overseen entity (for example, where the system is legally incorporated in its jurisdiction), or because of national laws that attribute specific oversight responsibilities to the central bank concerned. The latter is typically the case for systems, schemes or arrangements with a clear national anchor – those that are legally incorporated in a jurisdiction or serve that particular national market.

For systems that have no national anchor, the NCB of the country where the system is legally incorporated is responsible for oversight, unless the Governing Council of the ECB decides otherwise and assigns the primary oversight responsibilities to the ECB, as is the case for certain systemically important payment systems. If the oversight activities have been carried out by an NCB, the ECB will conduct oversight jointly with that NCB.

For payment schemes and arrangements that have no national anchor – for example, where the scheme or arrangement provides pan-European services or is incorporated outside the euro area – the lead overseer is the ECB. In cases where the pan-European scheme/arrangement has a traditional oversight or supervisory relationship with an NCB going back at least three years, the ECB jointly conducts oversight with that NCB.

Objectives

The Eurosystem has translated its oversight objectives of safety and efficiency into specific oversight regulations, standards, guidelines and recommendations, as appropriate for different financial market infrastructures (FMIs).

Standards

Oversight standards provide the benchmark for the Eurosystem to monitor and assess the safety and efficiency of relevant FMIs on an ongoing basis, and to induce change where shortcomings are identified.

Eurosystem oversight of FMIs is based on the internationally accepted CPSS-IOSCO Principles for financial market infrastructures (PFMIs), which were adopted by the ECB’s Governing Council in June 2013 as the standards for Eurosystem oversight of all types of FMIs in the euro area under the Eurosystem’s responsibility.

The PFMIs were translated into various legal acts in the EU, including the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) and, for the euro area, the ECB amending Regulation on oversight requirements for systemically important payment systems (ECB/2017/32) ( SIPS Regulation).

In relation to the SIPS Regulation, there are three supporting legal, namely, the ECB Regulation on the power of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions, the ECB Decision on procedural aspects concerning the imposition of corrective measures for non-compliance with Regulation (EU) No 795/2014 and the ECB Decision on the methodology for calculating sanctions for infringements of the oversight requirements for SIPS.