Czech National Bank

The mandate of the Czech National Bank comes from Act No. 6/1993 Coll. on the Czech National Bank. Its primary objective is price stability, and it also looks after financial stability, issues banknotes and coins, runs the interbank payment system CERTIS and supervises the entities operating on the Czech financial market. The CNB is part of the European System of Central Banks, but the Czech Republic keeps the koruna and has not joined the euro area.

Under its financial market supervision, the CNB oversees the banking sector, the capital market, the insurance industry, pension funds, credit unions, bureaux de change and payment system institutions. Czech banks therefore answer to the CNB in Prague, while the large banks of the euro area fall under ECB Banking Supervision in Frankfurt.

The CNB has to publish the entities it supervises, and it does so in one application, the lists of regulated institutions and registered financial market entities, known by its Czech short name JERRS. The lists name every firm that holds a license or authorization, has been registered or has filed a notification, and they show entries and exits over time. A web service gives developers machine access to the same data.

Crypto-asset service providers with a Czech MiCA license appear in JERRS once their decision becomes final. The ESMA register of MiCA authorizations lists the same firms for the whole EU, and the MiCA CASP list on Finance Loop sorts them by country.

On 15 February 2025 the CNB became the competent authority for crypto-asset service providers under MiCA, and the old Czech regime, under which crypto services were an unqualified trade, came to an end. Firms that wanted to keep operating during the transition had to apply by the end of July 2025, and they could continue at the latest until mid-2026. Since August 2025 only legal entities may provide services under MiCA in the Czech Republic.

The CNB received 248 applications, most of them shortly before the July deadline, and it issued the first six authorizations on 11 February 2026. Jan Procházka, a member of the Bank Board, said that a license does not mean the CNB considers an investment in crypto assets safe. The ESMA register of 16 October 2026 lists 12 Czech entries, 11 CASP authorizations and one notification by Partners Banka, and the Prague crypto exchange Coinmate is among the authorized firms.

On 13 November 2025 the CNB launched a test portfolio of digital assets with bitcoin, US dollar stablecoins and a tokenized dollar deposit. The Bank Board approved the purchase on 30 October 2025, and the portfolio cost USD 1 million, about 0.0006 percent of the assets of the bank. Governor Aleš Michl proposed the idea in January 2025 to test bitcoin from the perspective of a central bank and to assess whether it could diversify the reserves.

The portfolio is not part of the international reserves, and the CNB books it as an intangible asset. The bank will assess the project after two to three years and will not add money until then, and it states that it does not plan to hold bitcoin in its reserves in the near future. The test covers the legal, accounting, audit, procedural and security questions of holding and trading digital assets.

The CNB Lab is the innovation hub of the Czech National Bank and groups its projects into three modules: AI and data science, the Digital Assets Pilot with the test portfolio, and payments. The lab is the single point of access to the work of the bank on artificial intelligence, data and modern payment methods.

Fintech firms and banks with questions about new technology can write to the FinTech contact point of the CNB. A query should explain how the product, business model or technology differs from what the Czech market already offers, and a query with its own analysis and proposed solution gets a more specific reply.

The Bank Board is the supreme governing body of the CNB, sets monetary policy and decides on the fundamental measures in financial market supervision. Its seven members are Governor Aleš Michl, Deputy Governors Eva Zamrazilová and Jan Frait, and the board members Karina Kubelková, Jan Kubíček, Jan Procházka and Jakub Seidler.

The board meets about once a week, and eight of its meetings each year decide on monetary policy, including the repo rate for the koruna. Separate meetings each quarter cover financial stability, and the CNB publishes the minutes of both kinds of meeting.

The head office of the Czech National Bank is at Na Příkopě 864/28 in 115 03 Prague 1, and the switchboard answers on +420 224 411 111. The Green Line on +420 800 160 170 gives information on selected topics around the clock, and the mail room at Senovážná 3 is open from Monday to Thursday until 4:15 p.m. and on Friday until 3 p.m.

Besides Prague, the CNB has regional offices in Brno, Hradec Králové, Ostrava, České Budějovice, Plzeň and Ústí nad Labem. Clients who have a problem with a Czech financial institution can file a complaint through a web form, and the CNB usually answers within 30 days.