The European Central Bank (ECB) announced on Monday that Citibank Holdings Ireland had been identified as a "significant bank" as a result of its increased size, and would be directly supervised by the ECB from next January onwards.
On the basis of annual review of the significance of credit institutions, the ECB updates the list of significant European banks that are directly supervised by the ECB, whereas less significant banks are supervised by their national competent authority. Citibank Holdings fell into the significant group, the ECB said.
But with the merger of WGZ Bank and DZ Bank in Germany and the restructurings of State Street Bank Luxembourg and RFS Holding B.V. in the Netherlands, there is now a decline of the total number of significant banks in the euro area to 127.
Since November 2014, the ECB has assumed responsibility for the supervision of the euro area banking sector. As of the beginning of 2016, 129 banking groups which covered around 85 percent of total banking assets in the single currency union were directly supervised by the ECB.
The ECB and the national supervisory authorities constitute the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the first pillar of the European banking union, which was designed by the European Union after the financial crisis in order to move towards "a genuine economic and monetary union."
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