Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 11, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleThe ECB will simplify bank regulations, focusing on easing supervisory processes, but no major overhaul is planned, according to Claudia Buch.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The European Central Bank will cut red tape for banks in areas such as buybacks and new appointments, but lenders should not expect wholesale deregulation, the ECB's top supervisor Claudia Buch said on Wednesday.
The ECB is facing growing calls from banks to ease the supervisory burden it places on them, as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has pledged to do with its own lenders.
Buch said the ECB would simplify the way in which it approves banks' purchases of shares and bonds, their internal models and securitisations, as well as new board members and investors.
"We can improve the system and make it less complex," Buch said in her most detailed speech on the subject.
The ECB's annual Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process of banks was also being simplified, with improvements phased in over three years.
Buch was keen to rein in hopes of sudden, radical change.
"There will be no 'Big Bang'," she said.
In a sign of the mounting pressure on European regulators from the industry, the European Commission has delayed new, global rules governing banks' trading again to address fears from banks that they would be at a disadvantage to U.S. rivals.
And the ECB's policy-making Governing Council has also launched a task force, chaired by Vice President Luis de Guindos, that would look at the simplification of rules.
Buch said this task force would complement supervisors' work and called on lawmakers at the national and European level to do their part by getting rid of overlapping regulation.
"National reporting requirements that duplicate or contradict European ones should be phased out," she said.
(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Ed Osmond)
The ECB plans to cut red tape for banks in areas like buybacks and new appointments, simplifying the approval processes for purchases of shares and bonds, internal models, and securitisations.
No, ECB's top supervisor, Andrea Buch, emphasized that there will be no 'Big Bang' or sudden, radical changes in regulation.
The task force, chaired by Vice President Luis de Guindos, will focus on simplifying banking rules and complementing the work of supervisors.
The ECB is responding to growing calls from banks to ease the supervisory burden while still maintaining necessary regulations.
Buch suggested that national reporting requirements that duplicate or contradict European regulations should be phased out to streamline the regulatory process.
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