ECB tightens oversight of European banks’ exposure to AI industry

issued Monday, February 23, 2026 · 08:12 PM

[LONDON] The European Central Bank (ECB) is taking a closer look at the artificial intelligence (AI) industry risks facing the region’s banks, amid growing concerns about hidden credit exposures and financial sector disruption.

The Frankfurt-based central bank is asking a small number of private lenders for details about their loans to data centers and other businesses, the people said.

In parallel, regulators are conducting targeted workshops to identify how banks are using generative AI. The people involved requested anonymity because the matter is private. An ECB spokesperson declined to comment.

Central banks’ growing focus on AI risks highlights how regulators around the world recognize the technology’s potential to transform the banking sector, from transforming investment advisory operations to managing historic lending needs.

Banks and private credit companies around the world are pouring trillions of dollars into building AI across development companies, data centers, and energy supplies.

Workshops focus on aspects such as business models, governance and risk management. At least one financial institution was aware of the ECB’s focus on the need to be cautious in lending to sectors such as data centres, sources said.

The project comes ahead of the latest turmoil related to AI developments on February 16, when the stock price of asset management companies with exposure to private credit fell.

In 2025, the ECB announced that how banks use AI applications will be a priority for banking supervisors from 2026 to 2028, and that it will hold a “workshop” on the topic.

Other sources said the central bank and other authorities were expanding on previous efforts to question banks more broadly about their reliance on technology companies.

For example, they will ask what they would do if their cloud service provider or data center suddenly became unavailable, the people said. They noted that data restoration and backup would be a particularly good plan in this situation.

The Netherlands’ top financial regulator warned in a 2025 interview that AI would expose European financial institutions to even greater systemic threats from their dependence on foreign tech giants.

But the ECB is also asking about the potential benefits such technology could bring to individual banks, the people said.

At least one company is working on mapping its exposure to AI companies. A banker working there said the exercise was complex because it considered not only loans to AI companies and data centers, but also other connections such as power supply companies.

Shares of companies that provide wealth management services sold off in February as investors worried that large parts of the industry could become automated in the future.

Shares of other companies, including insurance and software, plummeted in February on speculation over the perceived threat posed by AI. bloomberg