In late November 2011, Cœuré was nominated to the ECB executive board to replace Italy’s Lorenzo Bini Smaghi.

France had reportedly insisted, as a condition for approving Italian Mario Draghi as Trichet's replacement earlier in the year, on Bini Smaghi's early resignation so a new French member could be appointed.

[12]” He also argued in favour of the ECB being tasked with banking supervision, but with a strict separation between the monetary policy and bank supervision functions of the ECB [13] He supported the controversial decision on OMTs (Outright Monetary Transactions), but was in strong favor of the introduced conditionalities to mitigate negative side effects.

[14] He argued that “under OMTs, governments will have to continue their reform efforts as required by the respective ESM programme and by IMF involvement.

[17] In a speech delivered in November 2018,[18] he also pioneered the discussion on the role of monetary for climate change[18][19] and he openly criticized the use of output gap calculation in EU macroeconomic policy.

[20] In his farewell speech from the ECB,[21] in December 2019, he argued against overreliance in capital markets to transmit monetary policy, and concluded that “If monetary policy remains a conversation between central banks and financial markets, we shouldn’t be surprised if people don’t trust us.” In October 2013 Cœuré was appointed chair of the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems,[22] a standard setting body for payment, clearing and securities settlement systems, which he headed for six years.

[26] In early 2019, a Reuters poll of economists found that Cœuré was considered best-suited for the role as President of the European Central Bank[citation needed], but Christine Lagarde was eventually nominated for the position.

[27][28] In 2020–21, the BIS Innovation Hub was deployed in Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, London and Stockholm in partnership with local central banks, and built a portfolio of proofs of concept and prototypes across five strategic themes: central bank digital currency, next generation financial market infrastructures, open finance, regtech and suptech, cybersecurity, and green finance.

[30] He warned against regulation of digital assets and decentralised finance being developed along different tracks and urged discussions on a global regulatory framework.

In May 2015, in an evening non-public speech with simultaneous release added but then delayed due to "an internal procedural error" at ECB, Cœuré apparently moved markets the next day in the Euro currency and European stocks and bonds with the announcement that the bank's bond-buying program would be "moderately front-load[ed]" before the summer trading lull.

[37] In a letter to the European Ombudsman,[38] Emily O’Reilly, ECB’s President, Mario Draghi, clarified the circumstances of the incident and noted that it resulted from internal miscommunication at an operational level on the timing of the speech’s publication, which took place out-of-office hours.