The EBA publishes follow-up on the Peer Review on the Joint ESAs Guidelines on the prudential assessment of the acquisition of qualifying holdings

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published a follow-up to the EBA 2021 peer review report on the application of the Joint ESAs Guidelines on the prudential assessment of the acquisition of qualifying holdings. The review assesses the adequacy and effectiveness of the actions undertaken by the competent authorities subject to the previous review and finds good progress in remedying the deficiencies identified in 2021.

The follow-up report focuses on the 17 competent authorities assessed as having at least one supervisory benchmark which was not ‘fully applied’ in the 2021 Report.

All 17 CAs were found to have responded to the assessment of the initial peer review seriously and most have adopted measures to remedy the deficiencies identified. Particular improvements were identified in the areas of assessment of the financial soundness of proposed acquirers and of suspicions of money laundering/terrorist financing issues.

Legal basis and background

The follow-up report has been developed in accordance with Article 23 of the EBA Decision of 28.04.2020 establishing a framework for Ad-Hoc Peer Review Committees (EBA/DC/2020/326) providing that a follow-up review has to be carried out two years after the conclusion of the initial peer review in order to assess if any progress has been made by the CAs to remedy the deficiencies previously identified.

The peer review has been performed by an ad hoc Peer Review Committee made up of EBA and competent authorities’ staff in accordance with the EBA peer review work plan for 2023-2024 and following the process in Article 30 of the EBA Regulation and EBA peer review methodology.

The initial 2021 Report assessed implementation of the common procedures and assessment methodology for acquisition or increase of direct or indirect qualifying holdings in a credit institution (CI) under the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD). The report covered 30 competent authorities (CAs): all 27 of the EU Member States, the ECB-SSM and 2 EEA countries.