I would like to offer a second insight into the workings of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) from the perspective of the national head of financial regulation in one of the Eurozone countries. The SSM is an unprecedented experiment. For the first time, prudential banking supervision is conducted at supra-national level.
The financial crisis has been a catalyst for the decision to do so, but it is no surprise that the European Union Treaty had already provided for the possibility to conduct banking supervision at the same level as the conduct of monetary policy, well before the financial crisis of the past decade.