(1)

The European Central Bank (ECB) is required to decide the total amount of annual supervisory fees to be levied by issuing fee notices for each category of supervised entities and supervised groups and to publish this information on its website by 30 April of the relevant fee period.

(2)

The fee notice for the first fee period, i.e. November to December 2014, is to be issued together with the fee notice for the 2015 fee period. The total amount of annual supervisory fees levied in 2015 should therefore reflect the expenditure incurred by the ECB in relation to its supervisory tasks since November 2014.

(3)

This expenditure primarily consists of costs directly related to the ECB's supervisory tasks, e.g. supervision of significant entities, oversight of the supervision of less significant entities and the conduct of horizontal tasks and specialised services. It also includes costs indirectly related to the ECB's supervisory tasks, e.g. services provided by the ECB's support areas, including premises, human resources management and information technology services.

(4)

To calculate the annual supervisory fee payable in respect of each supervised entity or supervised group, the total costs are split into two parts: significant entities and groups, and less significant entities and groups. The costs have been split on the basis of the expenditure allocated to the relevant functions that perform the direct supervision of significant supervised entities and the indirect supervision of less significant supervised entities.

(5)

The expenditure related to banking supervision tasks incurred by the ECB in the first fee period and recoverable via supervisory fees was included in the ECB's Annual Accounts for 2014 (2).

(6)

The estimated annual expenditure for the 2015 fee period is derived from the approved ECB budget, taking into account any developments in the estimated annual expenditure to be incurred by the ECB that were known at the time this Decision was prepared,