Frankfurt am Main, 5 August 2026
The ECB has issued its first-ever public report on whistleblowing across the Single Supervisory Mechanism, revealing a growing number of reports, with internal governance failures accounting for nearly two-thirds of substantiated cases. The findings offer a rare insight into how confidential tips increasingly shape European banking supervision.
The European Central Bank (ECB) and the national competent authorities (NCAs) of the Member States participating in the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) have set up protected channels[1] to enable the reporting of suspected breaches of European law under the prudential rules applicable to credit institutions.
Persons who work for or are in direct contact with a credit institution are often the first to know about any deficiencies or breaches of regulatory requirements that put credit institutions’ prudent management at risk. By reporting such deficiencies and breaches, either internally within the credit institution or to the supervisory authorities, whistleblowers can play a key role in exposing and preventing compliance risks and in ensuring, in the interest of the concerned credit institution and also of the general public, that the credit institution returns to compliance.
In addition, suspected breaches committed by the relevant authorities themselves, i.e. the ECB and the NCAs, in their prudential supervision of credit institutions can also be reported via those channels.
As such,...
Imagine receiving a WhatsApp message saying the government is now monitoring your calls, reading your private messages, and can even take legal action based on what you send. Sounds alarming, righ...