ECB nominates French woman for bank supervisor

Nouy is to be the only candidate for the job, and will work alongside a vice chairman to be selected from the ECB's six man executive board.

EU lawmakers finalised legislation to create a single bank supervisor this autumn, with the new regime to come into force in mid-2014.

The framework, which will initially bring around 130 banks under the ECB's direct supervision, is the first strand of ambitious plans to create a banking union for the eurozone.

Nouy, who is currently the secretary general of the French Prudential Control Authority, will appear at a hearing with MEPs on the economic affairs committee next Wednesday (27 November).

A career bank regulator who also served on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the body which drafts global standards for bank regulation, Nouy has long been touted as the most experienced candidate for the post.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker began the speculation in cryptic remarks at the start of 2013.

“It will be done and she will be French,” he told the European Parliament at a hearing in January, his final appearance as chairman of the Eurogroup, which brings together the eurozone's 17 finance ministers.

The nomination will also go a little way towards dispelling the notion that the ECB's top jobs are for men only.

Last October, MEPs tried to block the appointment of Luxembourg central bank governor Yves Mersch to the ECB's executive board in protest at the lack of women in its senior cadre.

But despite the euro-deputies' protest, all 23 members of the ECB's executive board and governing council are still men.