EBA launches its 2019 EU-wide transparency exercise

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today its regular EU-wide transparency exercise. In November 2019, together with the Risk Assessment Report (RAR), the EBA will release up to 2,2 mln data points on about 130 EU banks. The data will cover capital positions, financial assets, risk exposure amounts, sovereign exposures and asset quality. As in the past, the exercise is exclusively based on supervisory reporting data, which will keep the burden for the banks to a minimum. Transparency exercises are conducted on an annual basis and are part of the EBA's efforts to monitor risks and vulnerabilities and to reinforce market discipline.

As of this year, the transparency exercise will disclose data with quarterly rather than semi-annual frequency, in order to provide users with more granular supervisory data for time series analysis. Furthermore, this year the EBA will provide a more detailed overview of the banks' financial assets and risk weighted assets.

The EBA will start today the interaction with banks for supervisory reporting, data population and verification and expects to publish the results of the exercise by end-November, together with the annual Risk Assessment Report (RAR).

Notes to editors

Since its establishment, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has consistently pushed for additional disclosure and transparency in the EU banking sector. Financial information is a public good that has the potential to reinforce market discipline and the EBA considers dissemination of banks' data as an integral part of its responsibility of monitoring risks and vulnerabilities and preserving financial stability in the Single Market