Portugal’s Lenders to See Faster ECB Sign-Off under 15-Day Rule

The agency that scrutinises euro-area banks says it will start moving at start-up speed next month—a change Portuguese lenders have long lobbied for.

What is changing — at a glance

• 15-day turnaround for most supervisory authorisations

• Applies from early January across the Eurozone, including Portugal

• Aims to cut red tape for new products, capital measures and senior appointments

• Banco de Portugal will remain the first contact point but must feed files to Frankfurt more quickly

• The European Central Bank (ECB) vows to hold itself “publicly accountable” if it misses the new clock

Why Lisbon’s banking sector has been pushing for speed

For years, Portuguese institutions—from the country’s big five listed banks to mutual credit co-operatives—have complained that the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) sometimes took longer than the life-cycle of an Iberian sardine season to rubber-stamp seemingly simple requests. That lag mattered: projects such as digital-only account launches, green bond issuances or the appointment of an executive board member could be frozen for weeks, occasionally jeopardising market windows or breaching local labour-law deadlines. The new 15-day limit, announced late Friday, is designed to end that bottleneck.

How the new clock will work

Banks file documentation through the IMAS portal, the secure platform already used for licensing and “fit-and-proper” vetting.

National supervisors—Banco de Portugal in Lisbon for domestic banks and branches—have a maximum of 2 days to validate completeness.

The ECB then starts the 15-day countdown to issue either an approval, a conditional green light, or a request for extra data.

Only applications tagged “complex or precedent-setting” can be shifted to a longer timeline, which is now capped at 40 days.

What it means for customers and investors

A faster supervisor does not necessarily translate into looser oversight; rather, capital relief transactions, share-buy-back plans or loan-portfolio sales could hit the market sooner, giving Portuguese savers and firms quicker access to cheaper funding. Analysts at two Lisbon brokers estimate that, if the ECB had applied the 15-day rule this year, major banks would have saved between €4 M and €7 M in administrative costs and opportunity losses. Start-ups specialising in embedded finance say the move could shave an entire quarter off their go-to-market calendars.

Part of a bigger clean-up in Frankfurt

The new target is the first concrete milestone in the ECB’s “SSM Simplify” roadmap, a programme unveiled last spring to make the central bank less of a paperwork factory and more of a real-time supervisor. Other measures that will land in 2026 include a single digital dossier for all supervisory data and an AI-assisted triage tool for incoming files. The push comes as the watchdog faces criticism from the European Court of Auditors for “procedural opacity”.

Next steps for Portuguese lenders

Banco de Portugal told reporters it is reinforcing its Prudential Supervision Department with 12 new analysts to make sure national filtering does not become the new bottleneck. The Association of Portuguese Banks (APB) welcomed the overhaul but wants “a clear carve-out for low-risk community banks,” arguing that a one-size-fits-all approach still burdens smaller lenders. Meanwhile, the ECB plans to publish a quarterly scoreboard naming and shaming itself whenever deadlines slip—an accountability gimmick most bankers quietly hope will survive beyond the first quarter.

Quick takeaways for diagonal readers

• 15-day deadline replaces sometimes months-long waits.

• Applies to capital, product and governance approvals.

• Expected to unlock €4 M–€7 M in annual savings for Portuguese banks alone.

• Part of the wider SSM Simplify drive to digitalise supervision.

• Banco de Portugal beefs up staff to keep pace with Frankfurt.