ECB Governing Council decisions in April 2026

On 17 April 2026, the ECB Governing Council adopted the ECB’s Annual Report 2025, which was presented to the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and published on the ECB website on 4 May 2026 in 23 EU languages.

On 26 March 2026, the Governing Council adopted Decision ECB/2026/10 amending Decision (EU) 2019/1743 regarding the remuneration of excess reserves and certain deposits. The new remuneration rate, equal to the deposit facility rate, will apply from 17 June 2026.

The Council also took note of the report on non-bank financial intermediation prepared by a high-level task force, and approved the report on financial integration and structures in the euro area, to be published on 7 May 2026.

Additional decisions include the Eurosystem comprehensive payments strategy published on 31 March 2026, the mandate of the Appia Steering Group approved on 9 April 2026, and agreements with standard-setting bodies on digital euro online payment standards also approved on 9 April 2026.

On 10 April 2026, the Council approved roles and responsibilities for the digital euro pilot, scheduled to start in the second half of 2027. Several opinions on legislation were adopted, including on taxes on credit institutions, the composition of Latvijas Banka’s Council, capital market integration, cash payments, and remuneration of client funds.

In corporate governance, Elie Lewi was appointed to the Market Infrastructure Board on 1 April 2026. The ECB published meeting schedules for 2027 and 2028 on 24 April 2026.

Regarding statistics, the Governing Council amended guidelines on securities holdings data collection on 20 March 2026, and approved updates to the list of data reporting agents on 26 March 2026. The decision to move the IReF and Analytics projects into the realization phase was made on 23 April 2026.

In banking supervision, the results of asset quality reviews for two significant banks were disclosed on 20 March 2026. The ECB approved a report on vulnerabilities in the commercial real estate sector on 26 March 2026. An administrative penalty of €6.2 million was imposed on BofA Securities Europe SA on 27 March 2026. The ECB announced a streamlining of internal model assessments from 1 October 2026, and confirmed compliance with EBA guidelines on ancillary services undertakings.