Central Counterparties (CCPs) are financial market infrastructures that reduce and manage the counterparty risks in financial markets. Regulation (EU) n°648/2012 clearly defines in Article 2 a CCP as a legal person that interposes itself between the counterparties to the contracts traded on one or more financial markets, becoming the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer. This principal is the novation act. In addition, EMIR does not prevent Member States from adopting an authorisation as a credit institution for CCPs established in their jurisdiction (article 14 (5) of EMIR). Few CCPs in the European Union hold a banking licence while EMIR provides that authorised CCPs cannot carry out usual banking activities. EMIR and its technical standards define the requirements that CCPs shall fulfil, including capital requirements. Article 16 of EMIR clearly states that CCP’s capital shall be an adequate protection of the CCP against credit, counterparty, market, operational, legal and business risks which are not already covered by specific financial resources as referred to in Articles 41 to 44 of EMIR. Delegated Regulation (UE) n°152/2013 on capital requirements for CCP, drafted by the European Banking Authority, clearly distinguishes the risks arising from the novation act from other risk carried by the CCP in its usual business conduct. Recital 1 states Regulation (EU) n°648/2012 establishes, among other matters, prudential requirements for central counterparties (CCPs) to ensure that they are safe and sound and comply at all times with the capital requirements. Given that to a great extent risks stemming from clearing activities are covered by specific financial resources, such capital requirements should ensure that a CCP is at all times adequately capitalised against credit risks, counterparty risks, market risks, operational risks, legal and business risks which are not already covered by those specific financial resources and that it is able to conduct an orderly winding down or restructuring of its operations if necessary. In addition, Recital 5 states that Directive 2006/48/EC and Directive 2006/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2006 on the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions ( 5 ) are an appropriate benchmark for the purpose of establishing capital requirements to cover credit, counterparty and market risks non covered by specific financial resources, since they are similar to those carried out by credit institutions or investment firms. In consistency with what it is expected in article 16 of EMIR, the regulator considered that the risks arising from clearing activities are already covered by the dedicated financial resources held by CCPs for this purpose. In addition, the case of interoperability arrangements (Title V of EMIR) falls into the same consideration as Recital 6 explains that a CCP does not have to hold capital for trade exposures and default fund contributions which arise under an interoperability arrangement where the requirements of Articles 52 and 53 of Regulation (EU) n°648/2012 are fulfilled. Finally, Article 4 of Delegated Regulation (UE) n°152/2013 (Capital requirements for credit risk, counterparty credit risk and market risk which are not already covered by specific financial resources as referred to in Articles 41 to 44 of Regulation (EU) n°648/2012) confirms those provisions, stating the methodology to use in order to compute the capital requirements for market risk, the risk-weighted exposure amounts for credit risk and the risk-weighted exposure amounts for counterparty credit risk which are not already covered by specific financial resources as referred to in Articles 41 to 44 of Regulation (EU) n°648/2012. In addition, Article 4 of Delegated Regulation (UE) n°152/2013 clearly states that where all the conditions referred to in Articles 52 and 53 of Regulation (EU) n°648/2012 are not fulfilled and where a CCP does not use its own resources, the CCP shall apply a risk weight of 1 250 % to its exposure stemming from contributions to the default fund of another CCP and a risk weight of 2 % to its trade exposures with another CCP. In other words, when an interoperability arrangement fulfills the requirements of Article 52 and 53 of EMIR, the CCPs does not have to respect a capital requirement under EMIR against the risk arising from this interoperability arrangement. Finally, EBA has already expressed this need of consistency between regulations applied to CCPs holding a banking license in its Opinion on the European Commission’s consultation on a possible framework for the recovery and resolution of financial institutions other than banks on the 21/12/2012 (http://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/16103/EBA--Final-opinion-on-Com...) which states that “Even in cases where CCPs hold a banking licence, CCPs carry out activities that are not directly covered by the banking resolution framework and any legislative proposal should clearly identify these areas and how they can be treated if they were to fail or likely to fail“. Therefore it is consistent from a prudential perspective to apply the same approach stating that a risk already covered by one regulation shall not be covered by another regulation.