ecb-mcp

ecb-mcp

European Central Bank data for AI agents. Exchange rates, interest rates, yield curves, inflation, money supply, and 100+ more datasets from the ECB — directly inside Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, or any MCP client.

No API key. No registration. No config. Just npx ecb-mcp.

Why

The ECB publishes 100+ statistical datasets via a free, public API — exchange rates for 40+ currencies, key interest rates, yield curves, HICP inflation, monetary aggregates, banking statistics, and much more.

But the API uses SDMX, a format nobody memorizes. You need to know dataflow IDs, dimension key structures, and query syntax just to get a single number.

ecb-mcp translates natural questions into the right SDMX queries. Your AI agent asks "What's the current EUR/USD rate?" and gets a clean answer from live ECB data. No SDMX knowledge required.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ecb": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "ecb-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

That's it. No API key, no environment variables, no account creation.

Where to add this config

• Claude Desktop: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows)
• Claude Code: claude mcp add ecb-mcp -- npx -y ecb-mcp
• Cursor: Settings > MCP Servers
• Windsurf: ~/.windsurf/config.json

What you can ask

Once installed, just ask your AI agent questions in natural language:

"What's the current EUR/USD exchange rate?"

"Show me ECB interest rate changes since 2022"

"What's the eurozone inflation rate?"

"Convert 5000 USD to GBP using ECB rates"

"What's the 10-year euro area government bond yield?"

"How has M3 money supply grown over the past year?"

"What ECB datasets are available about bank lending?"

"Explain the structure of the EXR dataset"

Tools

get_exchange_rates

EUR reference rates for 40+ currencies. Daily, monthly, or annual. The same rates used by European institutions and businesses.

"What's the EUR/USD rate?"
"Show me EUR/GBP rates for the last 30 days"
"EUR/JPY monthly averages for 2024"

get_interest_rates

The ECB's key policy rates — the ones that move markets and drive eurozone monetary policy.

"What is the current ECB deposit facility rate?"
"Show me the history of ECB rate changes"
"When did the ECB last change the main refinancing rate?"

get_yield_curve

Euro area government bond yield curve. AAA-rated sovereign spot rates from 3 months to 30 years.

"What's the 10-year euro area yield?"
"Show me the 2-year yield over the past 6 months"
"Compare 5Y and 10Y yields since January"

get_inflation

HICP inflation — the official eurozone inflation measure. Available for the euro area as a whole or individual countries.

"What's the current eurozone inflation rate?"
"Germany's inflation over the past year"
"Compare inflation in France vs Spain"

get_money_supply

Euro area monetary aggregates (M1, M2, M3). Outstanding amounts or annual growth rates.

"What's the current M3 money supply?"
"M1 growth rate over the past year"
"How has M3 evolved since 2020?"

convert_currency

Convert any amount between currencies using official ECB reference rates. Supports EUR-direct, inverse, and cross-currency conversions (e.g., USD to GBP via EUR triangulation).

"Convert 1000 EUR to USD"
"How much is 500 GBP in JPY?"
"What was 10000 USD worth in CHF on 2025-01-15?"

search_datasets

Search across all 100+ ECB statistical datasets by keyword. The ECB publishes far more than exchange rates — banking statistics, balance of payments, government debt, payment systems, insurance data, and much more.

"What ECB datasets are about bank lending?"
"Find datasets related to government debt"
"What data does the ECB publish about payments?"

explain_dataset

Understand any ECB dataset's structure — its dimensions, valid values, and how to query it. This is the key to unlocking the full 100+ datasets beyond the built-in tools.

"Explain the EXR dataset structure"
"What dimensions does the BSI dataset have?"
"What are the valid currency codes?"

Data Source

All data comes directly from the ECB Data Portal API (SDMX 2.1 REST).

• No intermediary, no proxy — live data from the European Central Bank
• No authentication or API key required
• Exchange rates updated daily at 16:00 CET
• Other datasets updated at various frequencies (monthly, quarterly)

Configuration

ecb-mcp works with zero configuration. Optional settings:

Environment Variable	Default	Description
ECB_API_URL	https://data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service	API base URL. Only change this if you're proxying the ECB API.
DEBUG	—	Set to any value to enable debug logging to stderr.

Development

git clone https://github.com/scka-de/ecb-mcp.git
cd ecb-mcp
npm install
npm test                      # unit tests (fixtures, no API calls)
INTEGRATION=true npm test     # integration tests (live ECB API)
npm run build                 # compile to dist/
npm run dev                   # run in dev mode
npm run lint                  # check code style

How It Works

ecb-mcp translates your AI agent's natural language questions into SDMX series key queries against the ECB API. For example, when Claude asks for the EUR/USD rate, ecb-mcp:

1. Builds the SDMX key: D.USD.EUR.SP00.A
2. Fetches CSV from https://data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service/data/EXR/D.USD.EUR.SP00.A?format=csvdata
3. Parses the response and returns clean, human-readable data

For dataset discovery, ecb-mcp fetches and parses XML metadata from the ECB's structure definition endpoints, letting your agent explore all 100+ datasets without knowing SDMX.

License

MIT