In an interview with the Austrian national daily newspaper Der Standard, Klaus Liebscher – governor of the Austrian central bank (OeNB) – claims banking supervision.
“If lawmakers want it, OeNB can take the responsibility for banking supervision completely. We are predestined for this, we have the experts, we can do it," Liebscher reportedly said.
His claim is based on OeNB’s mandate as laid down in national laws and the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). Liebscher said: “We are responsible for the functioning of the markets, the supervision of the entire financial markets’ stability.”
Indeed, safeguarding financial stability is often presented as ESCB ‘aims’. See, for example, ‘The mission of the Eurosystem’ and ‘The strategic intents of the Eurosystem’.
However, no general financial stability ‘objective’ can be derived from the EC Treaty.
Nevertheless, since monetary policy and financial stability are linked, and financial markets and infrastructures play a key role in the transmission of monetary policy, the ECB and euro area national central banks (NCBs) like OeNB have a legitimate interest in and are committed to financial stability.
In 2001 the ECB published a note on the involvement of central banks in prudential supervision: ‘The Role of Central Banks in Prudential Supervision’. This note was adopted after debates on the reorganisation of the supervisory structure in some euro area countries.
The Governing Council of the ECB concluded that “when viewed from a Eurosystem perspective, the attribution of extensive supervisory responsibilities (i.e., both macro and micro-prudential) to NCBs is likely to prove beneficial”.