Decisions taken by the Governing Council of the ECB (in addition to decisions setting interest rates)

This is the ECB's routine list of Governing Council decisions taken in addition to the interest rate decisions: digital euro pilot calls, banknote redesign survey, Eurosystem legal act amendments, opinions on national legislation, and supervisory appointments. There is no monetary policy content in it at all: no rate discussion, no vote split, no balance of views on the policy stance. The only items a rates desk should register are the Schnabel resignation effective 3 January 2027 and the 30 November 2026 application date for amended collateral valuation haircut guidelines.

What’s new: Nothing material on policy. The market already had the rate path; this document does not touch it. Genuinely new information is administrative and personnel only: Isabel Schnabel's resignation from the Executive Board effective 3 January 2027 to join the IMF, and confirmation that amended Eurosystem haircut guidelines (ECB/2026/26 and ECB/2026/27) apply from 30 November 2026, with the substance left to a separate press release not included here.

KEY FINDINGS

• Ms Isabel Schnabel, Executive Board member, resigned with effect from 3 January 2027 to become Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department at the IMF, with the Ethics Committee finding no conflict and no cooling-off period applying. Removes a known hawkish voice from the Governing Council, a marginal shift in the committee's centre of gravity but an August-to-January personnel story, not a near-term policy signal.
• Amendments to the legal acts implementing the monetary policy framework, Guideline ECB/2026/26 and Guideline ECB/2026/27 on valuation haircuts, were adopted and will apply from 30 November 2026. Collateral haircuts and framework mechanics can move repo and secured funding costs, but the document gives no substance, so there is no tradeable detail here until the separate press release is read.
• The Governing Council approved the initiation of an assessment of the feasibility of interlinking the TIPS instant payment platform with Brazil's Pix, and considered an MIB recommendation on TIPS interlinking pricing. Long-dated payments infrastructure plumbing: no bearing on rates, curve or collateral demand at any horizon that matters for positioning.
• The ECB issued calls for expression of interest for e-commerce and m-commerce merchants for the digital euro pilot, with application deadlines of 27 October and 9 November 2026. Digital euro remains in pilot build-out; no implication for the monetary policy stance or the front end.

FROM THE DOCUMENT

On the same day, Ms Schnabel resigned from her position at the ECB with effect from 3 January 2027.