ECB updates collateral rules in regular review

The European Central Bank said on 29 September 2026 that it had published amendments to its guidelines on the implementation of monetary policy in the Eurosystem, and that the changes will apply from 30 November 2026 as part of a regular review.

One of the main changes is that the second-best rating issued by external credit assessment institutions will be used to judge whether private sector assets can be used as collateral under the Eurosystem collateral framework, and to determine the haircuts applied to those assets. The ECB said this applies to private sector assets such as unsecured bank bonds, covered bank bonds and assets issued by non-financial corporations and the non-euro area public sector, while the first-best rating will continue to apply to euro area public sector assets.

The ECB also said its risk control framework for monetary policy credit operations had been reviewed to maintain an adequate level of risk protection, improve consistency and enhance the risk equivalence of assets while ensuring collateral availability. As part of that work, the haircut schedule will be updated, including refinements for own-used or retained assets and greater granularity for individual credit claims by taking account of the type of amortisation on each claim.

The bank said credit claims that do not comply with all requirements of the general collateral framework, but that benefit from a COVID-19-related public sector guarantee under the temporary framework, will remain eligible only until the end of 2026.

It also said financial subsidiaries of non-financial corporate issuer groups will be allocated, subject to certain conditions, to the same haircut category as non-financial corporations and will be assigned to haircut category III, eligible as credit claim debtors and subject to the climate factor under the Eurosystem collateral framework. The ECB said this aligns them with their parent non-financial corporations.

Guidelines ECB/2026/26 and ECB/2026/27 will be available in English on the ECB’s website and will be published in all 24 official EU languages in the Official Journal of the European Union.