European Central Bank

What a great day at the annual career fair at University of Mannheim . My colleague Clara Gil García from our on-site inspection team in banking supervision and I were overwhelmed by the interest students from all over Europe had in career opportunities, such as a traineeship, PhD traineeship, (Economist) Graduate Programme, at the European Central Bank . United in diversity - Europe has talent. #europe #careeropportunities #diversityandinclusion

A special evening celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Association of German Banks (BdB) . Great to see Chancellor Friedrich Merz , Christian Sewing , President of the Association of German Banks, and many other familiar faces. In my remarks, I spoke about the highly uncertain economic environment and volatile energy markets. At the European Central Bank , we remain firmly committed to achieving our inflation target, while recognising the need to gather further information before drawing firm conclusions for monetary policy. The link to the full speech is in the comments 👇

60+ enterprise accounts shut off overnight by Anthropic. No warning. No human review. Days later: "Sorry, false positive." This is what happens when you build your business on someone else's algorithm/IP. THE INCIDENT The screenshot tells the story. Automated email. Policy violation. Access revoked. Operations halted. A few days later, Anthropic confirmed it was a false positive and restored access. But the damage was done. Teams locked out. No access to data. No exit scenario. No recourse. A few years ago, this would have been a PR catastrophe for the provider. Today, most people assume the customer must have done something wrong. That shift in perception is dangerous. THE DEPENDENCY TRAP When you build your company on a single AI provider, you are at their sole discretion. They control access. They control your data. They control whether you operate tomorrow. SLA assurances? Read the fine print. Most AI services offer minimal guarantees and reserve the right to suspend accounts based on automated decisions. Terms and Conditions? In this case, the company was not even told which clause they allegedly violated. Automated moderation. No explanation. No appeal. AUTOMATED DECISIONS AND THE AI ACT The EU AI Act is clear. When automated decisions have significant impact on individuals or organisations, human oversight is required. Shutting down 60+ enterprise accounts overnight, disrupting entire businesses and the livelihoods of the people behind them, is not a low risk decision. This is exactly the kind of automated decision making the regulation was designed to address. No human in the loop. No explanation. No proportionality assessment. Just an algorithm acting as judge, jury, and executioner over your business operations. If an automated system can shut down your company, that decision should meet the same standards of transparency and human review that the AI Act demands. The fact that it currently does not should concern every organisation relying on these services. THE SOVEREIGNTY QUESTION This is not just about vendor lock in. This is about sovereignty. There is no sovereignty when an algorithm can shut down your operations without human oversight, without explanation, and without accountability. Whether you are a small startup or a large enterprise, the risk is the same. One automated decision. One false positive. One revoked access. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Analyze your business processes. Identify dependencies on external providers. Ask yourself: what happens if this provider revokes access tomorrow? You are responsible for backup and recovery capabilities. Not the provider. Design for resilience: → Multi model strategies → Fallback systems → Data portability → Exit scenarios Do not let an automated moderation bot become an existential threat to your business. Take this seriously. Your existence depends on it. Beltug - LSEC - Leaders In Security - National Bank of Belgium - European Central Bank #AI #DigitalSovereignty #Resilience #BCM

The environment may be uncertain but we at the European Central Bank continue to be a voice for stability. That need for stability is the message I’ll carry with me at this week’s International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings. Looking forward to the conversations over the next few days!