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The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued a second fine against a bank for not adequately assessing its climate and environmental risks, sending a strong signal to EU banks on the importance of taking the threat from global warming seriously.
A €7.6mn periodic penalty payment was issued to Crédit Agricole on Friday for failing to meet a materiality assessment for 75 days in 2024.
The ECB had asked the bank to conduct an assessment of its climate risks, including identifying the material risks to which it might be exposed, by 31 May 2024 but Crédit Agricole did not meet the deadline.
The central bank issued its first climate fine against Spanish bank Abanca in November for also failing to meet a material assessment deadline. Periodic penalty payments are generally a last resort and a response to consistent deficiencies in a bank’s practice.
The fines follow a years-long process by the ECB to ensure that eurozone banks are identifying and managing their exposure to climate and environmental risks. The central bank conducted a climate risk stress test in 2022 to identify shortcomings and issued feedback to banks with staggered timelines.
The penalty “demonstrates [the] consistency of the ECB supervisory work and its continued commitment to address climate-related financial risks in the banking sector,” said Julia Symon, head of research and advocacy at Finance Watch.
She also noted that it raises concerns about financial stability, as the fine relates to shortcomings at a globally systemically important bank.
“This means that the bank does not even have a full understanding of how climate risk might affect its financial position, so that sound management of risks cannot be ensured, whereas climate-related financial risks are increasing with climate change accelerating and transition being delayed”.
Materiality assessments have led to more than 90% of eurozone banks considering themselves materially exposed to climate and environmental risks. European banks account for about 23% of the total funding to global fossil fuel companies, led by the UK and France at 8% and 6%, respectively.
Crédit Agricole provided US$55.8bn between 2021 and 2024 to fossil fuel companies, including for LNG expansion.
A spokesperson for Crédit Agricole said the “purely administrative penalty” was incomprehensible, as it had met the ECB’s requirements. The central bank’s decision was solely related to the response time of one highly granular request, namely a measurement at the department level related to a specific portfolio.
“This risk is immaterial at the Crédit Agricole Group level, and responding to the ECB at the level of granularity requested required extensive work which, despite the strong mobilization of teams, could not be completed within the timeframe imposed by the ECB,” the spokesperson said, reiterating that the fine does not affect the bank’s commitment “in favour of the climate and energy transition”.
Clarisse Murphy, central banks expert at French NGO Reclaim Finance, said the fine shows that banks can no longer ignore climate risks.
“It is a positive signal, but the ECB must go further and require banks to adopt robust transition plans, including a planned end to their support for fossil fuel expansion.”
Bruno De Conti, senior researcher for Positive Money Europe, said that while the fine is not significant for a large bank like Crédit Agricole, it sends a clear message.
“Bankers can no longer hide behind spreadsheets whilst pretending that a liveable planet is irrelevant to their bottom line. The rules have changed and so has the scrutiny”.
This page was last updated February 16, 2026
Written by
Moriah Costa is the Editor-in-Chief of Green Central Banking and has over a decade of experience writing about banking and finance. She is an award-winning American journalist based in Paris and has written for major international publications, including Reuters, The Guardian, and S&P Global. Having grown up in water-stressed Arizona, she has always had a strong interest in bringing awareness to climate and environmental issues.
