“Over the years, the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) has greatly benefited from the wealth of knowledge from the Bank of Portugal, especially in transfer strategies and bridge banks,” stated Dominique Laboureix during his speech at a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the SRM.
At the Money Museum in Lisbon, the SRB official acknowledged that Portugal, through its central bank, “has always had a special relationship with resolution.”
“It was not only one of the first member states of the European Union (EU) to adopt resolution regulation, but it was also one of the first to face two resolution cases (…) before the SRM was implemented,” he said, referring to the cases of Banco Espírito Santo in 2014 and Banif in 2015.
For Laboureix, this experience in Portugal and the understanding of the impacts on the economy distinguished the Bank of Portugal from other resolution authorities in other countries, something that “was also felt from the beginning” by SRB staff in Brussels.
Laboureix participated in the conference ’10 Years of the SRM — A Decade Delivering a More Resilient Financial System,’ which marks ten years of the SRM’s implementation.
He praised the banking resolution mechanism that was created from scratch but indicated that the work does not stop there.
“Crisis management, by nature, is always complicated. Do not expect a resolution decision without hitches. That will never happen,” he noted, pointing out that succeeding crises tend to be different from previous ones.
“That is why we need to continue our work, step by step, and with great confidence in our capabilities,” he recorded.
The Single Resolution Mechanism became fully operational on January 1, 2016, and serves as the resolution system for the banking sector. It is the second pillar of the Banking Union for euro area member states, alongside the single supervisory mechanism and the deposit guarantee system.
