The euro is the official currency of 20 of the 27 member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the euro area or, more commonly, the eurozone. The euro is divided into 100 euro cents.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central component of the Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important central banks with a balance sheet total of around 7 trillion.
De Nederlandsche Bank is the Dutch member of the Eurosystem and has been the monetary authority for the Netherlands from 1814 to 1998, issuing the Dutch guilder. Since 2014, it has also been the country's national competent authority within European Banking Supervision. It was originally founded by King William I, and has been since transformed into a state-owned public limited company.
The euro area, commonly called the eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 20 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU policies.
The Deutsche Bundesbank is the German member of the Eurosystem and has been the monetary authority for Germany from 1957 to 1998, issuing the Deutsche Mark (DM). It succeeded the Bank deutscher Länder, which had introduced the DM on 20 June 1948.
The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) is an institution that comprises the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central banks (NCBs) of all 27 member states of the European Union (EU). Its objective is to ensure price stability throughout the EU, and improve monetary and financial cooperation between eurozone and non-eurozone member states of the EU.
The Bank of France is the member of the Eurosystem for France. It was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 as a private-sector corporation with unique public status. It was granted note-issuance monopoly in Paris in 1803 and in the entire country in 1848, issuing the French franc. Long independent from direct political interference, it was brought under government control in 1936 and eventually nationalized in 1945. While other banks of issue were established in the French colonial empire, the Bank of France remained Metropolitan France's sole monetary authority until end-1998, when France adopted the euro as its currency.
The president of the European Central Bank is the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), the main institution responsible for the management of the euro and monetary policy in the Eurozone of the European Union (EU)
The Central Bank of Montenegro is the central bank of Montenegro. Montenegro does not issue its own currency, and unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002. The stated mission of the central bank is to establish and maintain a sound banking system and monetary policy.
Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy action where a central bank purchases predetermined amounts of government bonds or other financial assets in order to stimulate economic activity. Quantitative easing is a novel form of monetary policy that came into wide application after the 2007–2008 financial crisis. It is used to mitigate an economic recession when inflation is very low or negative, making standard monetary policy ineffective. Quantitative tightening (QT) does the opposite, where for monetary policy reasons, a central bank sells off some portion of its holdings of government bonds or other financial assets.
TARGET2 was the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system for the Eurozone from its phased introduction in 2007-2008 until its replacement with T2 in March 2023. As such, it was one of the Eurosystem's TARGET Services, replacing the original TARGET RTGS introduced in 1999. Like the other TARGET Services, it was developed and owned by the Eurosystem.
Banknotes of the euro, the common currency of the eurozone, have been in circulation since the first series was issued in 2002. They are issued by the national central banks of the Eurosystem or the European Central Bank. The euro was established in 1999, but "for the first three years it was an invisible currency, used for accounting purposes only, e.g. in electronic payments". In 2002, notes and coins began to circulate. The euro rapidly took over from the former national currencies and slowly expanded around the European Union.
The five-hundred-euro note (€500) is the highest-value euro banknote; it was produced between the introduction of the euro in 2002 until 2019. Since 27 April 2019, the banknote has no longer been issued by central banks in the euro area, but it continues to be legal tender and can be used as a means of payment.
Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) is a program of the European Central Bank under which the bank makes purchases in secondary, sovereign bond markets, under certain conditions, of bonds issued by Eurozone member-states. The program was presented by its supporters as a principal manifestation of Mario Draghi's commitment to do "whatever it takes" to preserve the euro.
European Banking Supervision, also known as the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), is the policy framework for the prudential supervision of banks in the euro area. It is centered on the European Central Bank (ECB), whose supervisory arm is referred to as ECB Banking Supervision. EU member states outside of the euro area can also participate on a voluntary basis, as was the case of Bulgaria as of late 2023. European Banking Supervision was established by Regulation 1024/2013 of the Council, also known as the SSM Regulation, which also created its central decision-making body, the ECB Supervisory Board.
Sabine Lautenschläger is a German jurist who served as a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from 2014 to 2019. She previously served as vice-president of the Deutsche Bundesbank from 2011 to 2013.
Gauweiler and Others v Deutscher Bundestag (2015) C-62/14 is an EU law case relevant for banking law which approved outright monetary transactions that were needed to save the Eurozone from financial turmoil.
The Intervention of ECB in the Eurozone Crisis were the interventions made between 2009 and 2010 by the European Central Bank (ECB) during the European debt crisis. In 2009–2010, due to substantial public and private sector debt, and "the intimate sovereign-bank linkages" the eurozone crisis impacted the periphery countries in Europe. This resulted in significant financial sector instability in Europe; banks' solvency risks grew, which had direct implications for their funding liquidity.
The Digital Euro is the project of the European Central Bank (ECB), decided in July 2021, for the possible introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The aim is to develop a fast and secure electronic payment instrument that would complement the Euro for individuals and businesses in its existing form as cash and in bank accounts, and would be issued by the European System of Central Banks of the Eurozone.
