Press releases

In its 12 March statement, the EBA urged banks to follow conservative distribution policies and use capital for ensuring the continuous financing of the economy. Banks in the European Union have been able to continue supporting businesses and mostly remained with strong levels of capitalisation. However, given that the COVID-19 crisis and the uncertainty on its impact on the economy are likely to continue, with possible further deterioration of asset quality metrics over the next quarters, the EBA urges banks to refrain from distributing capital outside the banking system when deciding on dividends and other distribution policies, including share buybacks, unless extreme caution is applied.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its first Report on progress made by competent authorities with the setting up of colleges to enhance supervisory cooperation for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) purposes. The EBA’s work on monitoring colleges is part of its new role to lead, coordinate and monitor the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) in all EU Member States as set out in the EBA Regulation.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its updated ad-hoc impact study on the implementation of Basel III in the EU in response to the EU Commission’s call for advice (CfA). The study is based on a sample of 99 banks and has a reference date of December 2019. Under the full implementation of Basel III and conservative assumptions, the updated impact is meaningfully lower than previously estimated, using June 2018 data and a consistent sample.  In addition, the Report presents some qualitative reflections on the potential interactions between different elements of Basel III framework and the estimated adverse impact of the COVID-19 crisis. The EBA reaffirms its policy recommendations put forward in its previous advice and supports the full implementation of the final Basel III standards in the EU, which will contribute to the credibility of the EU banking sector and ensure a well-functioning global banking market.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) publishes today an Opinion on the amendments proposed by the European Commission as regards the EBA final draft RTS specifying the assessment methodology competent authorities are to follow when assessing the compliance of credit institutions and investment firms with the requirements to use the Internal Ratings Based (IRB) approach laid down in the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR). These RTS are an important part of the EBA’ regulatory review of the IRB approach, as they harmonise the supervisory assessment methodology on the IRB approach across all Member States in the European Union (EU).

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an Opinion on how to strengthen the connection between the EU legal frameworks on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing, and deposit protection. The proposals set out in the Opinion are addressed to the European Commission and aim at informing its ongoing reviews of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD) and the Deposit Protection Schemes Directive (DGSD). The Opinion is also addressed to the national authorities, to implement some changes already under the current legal framework and ahead of the potential future revisions of the AMLD and DGSD.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its annual Risk Assessment of the European banking system. The report is accompanied by the publication of the 2020 EU-wide transparency exercise, which provides detailed information, in a comparable and accessible format, for 129 banks across 26 EEA / EU countries and for 6 banks from UK. Despite the COVID-19 shock, banks have maintained solid capital and liquidity ratios and have increased their lending to the real economy. However, economic uncertainty persists, profitability is at record low levels, and there are several early signs for a deterioration in asset quality.

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 a Report on the impact of implementing the final Basel III reforms in the EU. The full Basel III implementation, in 2028, would result in an average increase of 15.4% on the current Tier 1 minimum required capital of EU banks. The results do not reflect the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on participating banks as the reference date of this impact assessment is December 2019.

The United Kingdom (UK) left the European Union (EU) on 31 January 2020. Under the Withdrawal Agreement reached between the EU and UK, EU law applies in the UK during a transition period until 31 December 2020. This means that EU law will stop to apply in the UK as of 1 January 2021, and from that date onwards, UK financial institutions not holding a valid authorisation from the supervisory authorities in the EU will lose the right to provide financial services in the EU.

The Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) – ESMA, EBA and EIOPA – wish to highlight the impact in the change of status of ‘Simple, Transparent and Standardised’ (STS) securitisation transactions after the end of the Transition Period on 31 December 2020.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today final draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on how institutions are to calculate the own funds requirements for foreign-exchange and commodity risk stemming from banking book positions under the FRTB standardised and internal model approaches.

After closely monitoring the developments of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in particular, the impact of the second COVID-19 wave and the related government restrictions taken in many EU countries, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has decided to reactivate its Guidelines on legislative and non-legislative moratoria. This reactivation will ensure that loans, which had previously not benefitted from payment moratoria, can now also benefit from them. The role of banks to ensure the continued flow of lending to clients remains of utmost importance and with the reactivation of these Guidelines, the EBA recognises the exceptional circumstances of the second COVID-19 wave. The EBA revised Guidelines, which will apply until 31 March 2021, include additional safeguards against the risk of an undue increase in unrecognised losses on banks’ balance sheet.

The European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), have today published a final report with draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) proposing to amend the Commission Delegated Regulation on the risk mitigation techniques for OTC derivatives not cleared by a CCP (bilateral margin requirements) under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).

The European Banking Authority (EBA) publishes today a Report on significant risk transfer (SRT) in securitisation transactions, which includes a set of detailed recommendations to the European Commission on the harmonisation of practices and processes applicable to the SRT assessment. The EBA proposals aim to enhance the efficiency, consistency and predictability of the supervisory SRT assessment within the current securitisation framework.

Piers Haben, Director of the Banking, Markets, Innovation and Consumers department at the EBA, spoke about a multi-layered approach to regulation at the event "What to regulate? How to regulate? Who should regulate?" organised by the European Association for Banking and Financial Law. In his speech, Piers Haben highlighted the EBA's approach towards innovative applications of technology in the financial sector in accordance with the principle of technological neutrality.