European Banking Authority
The European Banking Authority (EBA) is the independent EU authority for banking regulation, founded in 2011 after the financial crisis and based in Paris La Défense. It writes the technical standards and guidelines of the single rulebook for EU banks, runs the EU-wide stress test and mediates between national supervisors in cross-border disputes.
The EBA does not supervise individual banks, which remain with national supervisors such as BaFin or with ECB Banking Supervision. Under MiCA it does supervise the issuers of significant stablecoins directly, and under DORA it shares the oversight of critical ICT providers with the other two European Supervisory Authorities.
EBA stress test: 2025 results and the 2027 exercise
The EBA runs the EU-wide stress test with the European Systemic Risk Board, the ECB and the European Commission, which develop the scenarios together. The test works bottom-up: each bank calculates the effect of the scenarios on its own balance sheet with a common methodology, and the EBA publishes the results bank by bank. There is no pass mark, and supervisors use the results in their annual review of each bank.
On 1 August 2025 the EBA published the 2025 results for 64 banks from 17 EU and EEA countries, covering 75 percent of the assets of the EU banking sector. In the adverse scenario the banks lost EUR 547 billion, and their CET1 ratio fell by 370 basis points to 12 percent, a smaller drop than in 2023 because of stronger income. On 11 June 2026 the EBA released the draft methodology and templates for the 2027 stress test.
EBA guidelines and technical standards
The EBA drafts regulatory and implementing technical standards, which the European Commission adopts as binding regulations, and it issues guidelines and recommendations of its own. National supervisors must state whether they comply with a guideline or explain why they do not, and the EBA publishes these compliance tables.
Banks use many EBA guidelines in daily work, among them the guidelines on outsourcing arrangements, on internal governance and on loan origination and monitoring. The outsourcing guidelines set the rules for cloud contracts of banks, which outsourcing and cloud in German banking explains for the German market.
Single rulebook and the Q&A tool
The single rulebook is the set of harmonized prudential rules for banks in the EU, built on the Capital Requirements Regulation and Directive, the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive and the Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive. The EBA writes the technical standards under these laws and keeps the Interactive Single Rulebook, an online tool that shows each article with its delegated acts, guidelines and answers to questions.
The tool also covers PSD2, DORA, MiCA, the Investment Firms Regulation and the rules on transfers of funds and crypto assets. Banks and supervisors can submit questions through the Q&A tool, and the published answers explain how the EBA reads a provision, although the tool itself has no legal effect.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Germany
Supervision of stablecoin issuers under MiCA
Under MiCA the EBA checks regularly whether an asset-referenced token or an e-money token is significant, which applies when at least three of the criteria in the regulation are met. For a significant asset-referenced token the EBA takes over the direct supervision of the issuer from the national authority, and for a significant e-money token of an electronic money institution it supervises jointly with that authority.
For every significant issuer the EBA sets up and chairs a supervisory college, and it inspects issuers both off site and on site. More detail on the crypto rules of the EBA, from capital requirements to anti-money laundering, is on the page on the EBA and crypto assets.
Oversight of critical ICT providers under DORA
The Digital Operational Resilience Act gave the EBA, together with ESMA and EIOPA, new oversight duties for ICT third-party providers that are critical for the financial sector, such as large cloud providers. In October 2024 the three authorities appointed a director to lead their joint DORA oversight, and the EBA works on the harmonized rules for ICT risk management, incident reporting and resilience testing under the DORA regulation.
Chair, vice chair and Board of Supervisors
François-Louis Michaud has been chair of the EBA since 16 April 2026 for a term of five years, which can be extended once. He had been executive director of the EBA since 1 September 2020 and succeeded José Manuel Campa, who left office on 31 January 2026. The vice chair is Helmut Ettl, executive director of the Austrian Financial Market Authority, and Jonathan Overett Somnier is acting executive director.
The Board of Supervisors is the main decision-making body and adopts the technical standards, guidelines, opinions and reports. Its voting members are the heads of the national banking supervisors of the member states, and a Resolution Committee handles the tasks under the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive.
Address in Paris La Défense
The authority has its offices in the Tour Europlaza at 20 avenue André Prothin in 92400 Courbevoie, in the business district of Paris La Défense. The postal address is Tour Europlaza, 20 avenue André Prothin, CS 30154, 92927 Paris La Défense CEDEX, France.
The switchboard answers on +33 1 86 52 70 00 from Monday to Friday between 9:00 and 17:30, and general questions go to info@eba.europa.eu or through a web form.
European Banking Authority and Finance Loop
Banks, payment institutions and stablecoin issuers in the EU work under the technical standards and guidelines of the European Banking Authority. Finance Loop members discuss the stress test, DORA oversight and the supervision of stablecoins under MiCA at events on banking regulation and digital assets.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.