Press releases

The Joint Board of Appeal of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs – European Banking Authority, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, and European Securities and Markets Authority) published today its decision in the appeal case brought by Mr Howerton against the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The Board of Appeal’s decision considered as inadmissable the Appellant’s claim that six national financial supervisory authorities and ESMA should have taken supervisory steps in relation to an alleged non-application of Union law.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its quarterly Risk Dashboard covering Q2 2020 data and summarising the main risks and vulnerabilities in the EU banking sector. Whereas capital ratios held up well, there are indications that the crisis starts to have an impact on asset quality. With increasing cost of risk, profitability continued its declining trend.

Following the entry into force of the fifth Capital Requirements Directive (CRD V), the European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a set of Guidelines on the appropriate subsets of sectoral exposures to which a competent or designated authority (hereby relevant authority) may apply a systemic risk buffer.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its annual work programme for 2021, describing the activities and tasks of the Authority for the coming year and highlighting its key strategic areas of work.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today its 7th annual EU-wide transparency exercise, with the objective of providing market participants with updated information on the financial conditions of EU banks as of June 2020, thus assessing the preliminary impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the sector. The EBA expects to publish the results of this exercise at the beginning of December, along with the Risk Assessment Report. 

The three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA - ESAs) have issued their first joint risk assessment Report of the financial sector since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Report highlights how the pandemic has led to further amplified profitability concerns across the board and heightened liquidity challenges in segments of the investment fund sector. It particularly points to economic and market uncertainty as a key challenge going forward.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has been closely monitoring the developments of the COVID-19 pandemic and, considering the progress made so far, will phase out its Guidelines on legislative and non-legislative payment moratoria in accordance with its end of September deadline. These Guidelines, which were published in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, have provided the necessary flexibility as well as certainty on the regulatory framework, in light of significant number of actions taken by banks to support their customers as exceptional lock-down measures were put in place. The continued ability for banks to provide lending is of key importance and the EBA will keep monitoring the situation as needed.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an Opinion addressed to the European Commission to raise awareness as to the opportunity to clarify certain issues relating to the definition of credit institution in the upcoming review of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) and Capital Requirements Directive (CRD). Such clarifications would be beneficial to the development of a truly uniform Single Rulebook and ultimately to a deeper market integration of banking and financial services across the EU.

The European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA - ESAs) published today a survey seeking public feedback on presentational aspects of product templates, pursuant to Article 8(3), Article 9(5) and Article 11(4) of Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 on sustainability‐related disclosures in the financial services (SFDR). The survey is open for comments until 16 October 2020.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an online survey to receive input from credit institutions on their practices and views in the area of disclosure of information on environmental social governance (ESG) risks. The survey, which is addressed to large credit institutions that will be required to disclose prudential information on ESG risks, aims to support the EBA’s policy work on Pillar 3 disclosure and its wider efforts to develop a robust policy framework in the area of sustainable finance. The deadline for the call for input is 16 October 2020.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its response to a European Commission’s call for advice on how to strengthen the EU legal framework on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). The European Commission issued this call for advice to the EBA to take advantage of its technical expertise across all areas of financial services regulation and because the EBA has a legal duty to lead, coordinate and monitor the EU financial sector’s fight against ML/TF.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) issued today a revised list of validation rules in its Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on supervisory reporting, highlighting those, which have been deactivated either for incorrectness or for triggering IT problems. Competent Authorities throughout the EU are informed that data submitted in accordance with these ITS should not be formally validated against the set of deactivated rules.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its Annual Report on resolution colleges for 2019. The Report sets out the EBA’s observations on the efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of the functioning of resolution colleges during the year and the progress achieved in key areas of resolution planning. It also highlights the main areas that the EBA will monitor in 2020, which primarily address responses to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, the Report shows that resolution colleges continue to be an active forum for resolution authorities in the development of resolution plans for cross-border banking groups, where the intensity and quality of cooperation and dialogue has also improved.

François-Louis Michaud has started today his new role as Executive Director of the European Banking Authority (EBA). Michaud, who was confirmed in this role after a plenary vote in the European Parliament on 8 July 2020, will serve a five-year renewable term.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an Opinion in response to the European Commission’s intention to amend the EBAs final draft Regulatory Technical Standard (RTS) on the specification of the nature, severity and duration of an economic downturn. The EBA is of the view that the several changes introduced by the Commission would alter the agreed policy and, therefore, suggests changes with the aim of maintaining the agreed consensus of the originally submitted text.