The annual work programme describes and summarises the main objectives and deliverables of the EBA in the forthcoming year. It is based on the tasks specified in the Regulation and in the relevant EU banking sector legislation.
The year of 2013 will be the third year of operation for the EBA as a fully-fledged EU Authority in the new European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS). Therefore, emphasis will remain on the development and strengthening of the EBA’s institutional capabilities.
In addition, it should be noted that new legislative proposals, currently being discussed or expected to be published in the coming months, including the Banking Union and the Recovery and Resolution proposals, may have a significant impact on the EBA’s tasks and priorities in 2013 and thereafter. In particular, the Banking Union would have important repercussions on the EBA’s tasks, as it would call for an even stronger commitment to the single rulebook and unified supervisory methodologies. For these reasons, the EBA may, if need be, revise and adjust its annual work programme.
Main priorities
The fundamental objective for the EBA in the regulatory policy area will be to play a central role in the development of the single rule book, with the aim to contribute to achievement of a level playing field for financial institutions as well as to raise the quality of financial regulation and the overall functioning of the Single Market. The EBA’s work in this area relates in particular to the CRDIV/CRR legislative framework, including liquidity and remuneration, as well as to the crisis recovery and resolution legislative framework.
The EBA’s oversight activities will focus on identifying, analysing and addressing key risks in the EU banking sector, including analysing the consistency of outcomes in risk weighted assets (RWAs), the sustainability of banks business models and reviews of banks’ asset quality, promoting supervisory cooperation and convergence and continuing its work in colleges of supervisors to strengthen European supervision of cross-border banking groups.
Last but not least, the EBA is committed to enhance the consumer protection and promote transparency, simplicity and fairness for consumer financial products and services across the Single Market, and as such will focus its consumer protection activities on developing guidelines on responsible mortgage lending, and on arrears handling and forbearance in the mortgage market, and regulatory technical standards on Professional Indemnity Insurance.
The above three areas - Regulation, Oversight, and Consumer Protection - are representing the core functions of the EBA that are laid down in the EBA regulation. For these, a detailed list of tasks including a breakdown of deliverables is also provided. Further, a separate horizontal unit, Policy Analysis and Coordination, provides the internal and external policy coordination between the core functions of the EBA and external stakeholders, as well as provides the legal review and assesses the impact of the EBA’s policy proposals. The support functions summarised as Operations are playing a critical role in ensuring that the EBA can perform its core functions, and thus, their main working objectives are also summarised.
A detailed list of EBA’s tasks is presented in the Annex.