"Banking union"

One of the building blocks for completing Economic and Monetary Union, which consists of an integrated financial framework with a single supervisory mechanism, a single bank resolution mechanism, and a single rulebook, including harmonised deposit guarantee schemes, which may evolve into a common European deposit guarantee scheme.

"CRR/CRD (CRD)"

Capital Requirements Regulation and Directive: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms (CRR) and Directive 2013/36/EU on access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms (CRD). They are often jointly referred to as CRD.

"ECB supervisory decision"

A legal act adopted by the ECB in the exercise of the tasks and powers conferred on it by the SSM Regulation. It is addressed to one or more supervised entities or supervised groups or one or more other persons and is not a legal act of general application.

"Enforcement and sanctioning powers"

Powers available to the ECB aimed respectively at: (i) compelling a supervised entity or person to comply with the prudential requirements, i.e. enforcement; and (ii) punishing a supervised entity for the lack of compliance with the prudential requirements through a pecuniary sanction.