Press releases

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation on new Guidelines on the role, tasks and responsibilities of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance officers. The Guidelines also include provisions on the wider AML/CFT governance set-up, including at the level of the group. Once adopted, these Guidelines will apply to all financial sector operators that are within the scope of the AML Directive. This consultation runs until 2 November 2021.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today the results of its 2021 EU-wide stress test, which involved 50 banks from 15 EU and EEA countries, covering 70% of the EU banking sector assets. This exercise allows to assess, in a consistent way, the resilience of EU banks over a three-year horizon under both a baseline and an adverse scenario, which is characterised by severe shocks taking into account the impact of the pandemic. The individual bank results promote market discipline and are an input into the supervisory decision-making process. The adverse scenario has an impact of 485 bps on banks’ CET1 fully loaded capital ratio (497 bps on a transitional basis), leading to a 10.2% CET1 capital ratio at the end of 2023 (10.3% on a transitional basis).

​​​​​​​The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today clarifications to a sixth set of issues that had been raised by participants of its Working Group (WG) on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) under the Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The clarifications respond to issues raised on authentication with electronic signatures, biometrics and authentication on mobile apps, preventing social engineering fraud, ability of payment initiation service providers to refuse a payer’s request to initiate a payment transaction, and complexity in the authentication process.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final Guidelines on the monitoring of the threshold and other procedural aspects on the establishment of intermediate EU parent undertakings (IPU) as laid down in the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD). The Guidelines specify how third country groups should calculate and monitor the total value of their assets in the Union in order to ensure timely application of the IPU requirement.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation on draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) setting out criteria for the identification of shadow banking entities for the purposes of reporting large exposures. The consultation runs until 26 October 2021.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) publishes today a Discussion Paper aiming at gathering some preliminary input on how to standardise the proportionality assessment methodology for credit institutions and investment firms. The discussion paper invites all market participants affected by the proportional treatment in the application of EBA regulatory products to provide their input. The consultation runs until 22 October 2021.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its annual report on Asset Encumbrance. As COVID-19 spread across Europe, banks made extensive use of central bank facilities to strengthen their liquidity buffers and maintain the flow of credit to the real economy. This resulted in the largest yearly rise in the asset encumbrance ratio since data is available.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a methodological guide to mystery shopping (MS). This guide has been developed based on the findings and good practices identified in the EBA report on MS activities of NCAs published earlier this year and aims to support NCAs in the design and implementation of MS activities.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation on amendments to its Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on currencies with constraints on the availability of liquid assets in the context of the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR). The proposed amendments remove the Norwegian Krone (NOK) from the list, with the result that no currency will be recognised as having constraints on the availability of liquid assets. The consultation runs until 16 October 2021.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) welcomed today’s judgment by the European Court of Justice establishing the validity of its Guidelines on Product Oversight and Governance. This Court ruling supports the EBA’s ability to reduce the prudential impact of misconduct for financial institutions and to protect consumers from banking products that are not fit for purpose. The EBA will continue to establish high quality standards for the banking sector and EU citizens.  

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation on draft Guidelines providing clarity on the application of the limited network exclusion requirements, which certain payment instruments might benefit from, as laid down in the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Such payment instruments include store cards, fuel cards, public transport cards, and meal vouchers. Given the significant inconsistencies the EBA has identified on how this exclusion is applied across the EU, the proposed Guidelines aim at clarifying specific aspects of its application, including on how a network of service providers or a range of goods and services should be assessed in order to qualify as ‘limited’, the use of payment instruments within limited networks, the provision of excluded services by regulated financial institutions and the submission of notification to competent authorities (CAs). The consultation runs until 15 October 2021.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final Guidelines clarifying the requirements that the data inputs used to determine the scenarios of future shocks applied to modellable risk factors should meet. The Guidelines, which are part of the deliverables included in the roadmap for the new market and counterparty credit risk approaches, will be applicable from 1 January 2022.

​​​​​​​The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today phase 2 of its 3.1 reporting framework. The technical package supports the implementation of the reporting framework by providing standard specifications and includes the validation rules, the Data Point Model (DPM) and the XBRL taxonomies for version 3.1.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today final draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) and Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on cooperation and information exchange between competent authorities involved in prudential supervision of investment firms. These draft standards, developed in consultation with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), provide a solid framework for (i) cooperation in the supervision of investment firm groups through colleges of supervisors and (ii) for information exchange for investment firms operating within the EU through branches or the free provision of services. These draft standards are part of the phase 2 mandates of the EBA roadmap on investment firms, and aim at improving cooperation and information exchanges between the supervisors of investment firms.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published today their revised final joint Guidelines on the assessment of the suitability of members of the management body and key function holders. These Guidelines take into account the amendments introduced by the revised Capital Requirements Directive (CRD V) and the Investment Firms Directive (IFD), and their effect on the assessment of the suitability of members of the management body, in particular with regard to money laundering and financing terrorism risks, and gender diversity. The joint final Guidelines will apply from 31 December 2021.