Governance of the Single Supervisory Mechanism: Some Reflections

Euro area countries agreed on the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) where the European Central Bank (ECB) will assume a crucial role. Our article reflects on the involvement of the ECB in bank supervision and the governance arrangements of the new centralized supervisor that still rely on coordination along different dimensions. After reviewing the national bank supervisors' governance arrangements and highlighting critical individual criteria on which there has been lack of convergence, we analyze the governance arrangements of the ECB as defined in the Proposed Council Regulation. We focus on the operational content of the independence and accountability arrangements as well as the implications of those governance arrangements for more effective bank supervision, making some policy consideration to improve the new European supervisory architecture.