Less significant institutions (LSIs) are banks in participating Member States that do not meet any of the significance criteria set out in the SSM Regulation. In practice, this means that LSIs primarily include smaller euro area banks whose assets do not exceed EUR 30bn.
LSIs are directly supervised by their national supervisory authorities, under the oversight of the ECB, whereas significant institutions are directly supervised by the ECB.
Among LSIs, some are considered ‘high priority’ based on their size, riskiness and/or impact on the national economy. Normally, at least three LSIs in each country are considered to be high priority.