Role and mandate
The Single Resolution Board (SRB) is the EU agency at the centre of the Single Resolution Mechanism. Established by the SRMR, it is the resolution authority for banks in the banking union, with the mission of ensuring that failing banks can be resolved in an orderly way, protecting critical functions and financial stability while minimising the use of public money. It is the resolution counterpart to the European Central Bank's supervisory role within the banking union.
The SRB is directly responsible for the banks and groups that fall within its remit — broadly the significant institutions under ECB direct supervision and other cross-border groups in the banking union — while national resolution authorities are responsible for the remaining, less significant banks and carry out the SRB's decisions at national level. For its banks the SRB draws up resolution plans, assesses resolvability and works to remove impediments, sets MREL targets, and, if a bank is failing or likely to fail and resolution is in the public interest, adopts the resolution scheme applying the resolution tools.
How it works
The SRB reaches decisions in executive and plenary sessions and works closely with the ECB, national resolution authorities and the European Commission and Council, which have defined roles in endorsing a resolution scheme. It also administers the Single Resolution Fund, financed by ex-ante contributions from the banking sector, which can be deployed under strict conditions to support a resolution once shareholders and creditors have absorbed losses. Day-to-day preparation for each bank is organised through internal resolution teams that bring together SRB and national authority staff.
Legal basis
The SRB is created and empowered by the SRMR (Regulation (EU) 806/2014). Its establishment and tasks are set out in the regulation, with the division of responsibilities between the SRB and national resolution authorities defined in SRMR Art. 7 and the fund provisions in Arts. 67–79. The SRB exercises, at banking-union level, the substantive powers and tools that originate in the BRRD.
Relevance for banks and investors
For banks in the banking union, the SRB is the authority that determines their resolution strategy, their MREL requirement and, in a crisis, whether and how they would be resolved. For investors, the SRB's approach — its resolvability expectations, MREL calibration and published policies — shapes the predictability of how bank liabilities would be treated in a failure, and identifying whether an issuer falls under the SRB or a national authority is a first step in assessing its resolution risk.