In the euro area, as elsewhere, national authorities bear the main responsibility for national macroprudential policies. They are always in the best position to detect country-specific systemic risks and to take appropriate measures to address them. These national policies are organized differently in different countries. In Finland, for example, the designated macroprudential authority is the financial supervisor, the FIN-FSA.
In many euro area countries, however, the national macroprudential authority is the central bank or a council of domestic authorities. In November last year, the ECB took over the responsibility of supervising banks in the euro area. It is less well-known that at the same time the ECB became the ultimate macroprudential decision-maker in the Banking Union.