ECB Expected to Go on a Hiring Drive

Frankfurt based banking giant, The European Central Bank, which will be the official regulator of 17 EU nations, will be going on a hiring drive. As per an Austrian regulator, ECB will have to hire around 1000 employees to look after its operations and entrusted responsibilities, reported eFinancial Careers.

Relying on local banks to conduct audits and exercise authority would lead to ECB's failure of achieving coordinated banking operations in the European area, leading it to lose its jurisdiction, reported Bloomberg.

ECB will have to hire "relatively quickly some 700 to 1,000 staff. If the ECB had to rely only on local regulators' staff, an important element of the strengthening would be lost," Kurt Pribil, co-chairman of Finanzmarktaufsicht regulator told Bloomberg.

Any bank that holds assets worth 30 billion euros or more would be under direct surveillance of ECB. Other banks may be looked after by national regulators. However, ECB has the power to intervene "at any time, on its own initiative," reported Bloomberg.

The Austrian regulators are also bent on designing a sole administrative system like an "open project" in which the ECB members can easily join without having to use the euro, Pribil told Bloomberg.

"Austrian banks have many subsidiaries in central and Eastern Europe, and not all of them have the euro" Pribil told Bloomberg

"We want them to be part of it; hence we want this banking union to be like a magnet that attracts the non-euro members rather than repels them." he added.

ECB will be looking after banking operations of 17 European states and its authority will be optional in the other EU states.

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