Press releases

Following its call on 12 March 2020 to Competent Authorities to make use of the full flexibility provided for in the existing regulation, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued today a second statement to explain a number of additional interpretative aspects on the functioning of the prudential framework in relation to the classification of loans in default, the identification of forborne exposures, and their accounting treatment. These clarifications will help ensure consistency and comparability in risk metrics across the whole EU banking sector, which are crucial to monitor the effects of the current crisis. The EBA also reminds financial institutions of their consumer protection obligations, temporarily lifts some reporting obligations for payment service providers (PSPs), and calls on PSPs to raise their contactless payment thresholds to the legal limit.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launches a call for research papers in view of the 2020 Policy Research Workshop taking place on 12-13 November 2020 in Paris on the topic "New technologies in the banking sector – impacts, risks and opportunities". The submission deadline is 10 July 2020.

• EU-wide stress test postponed to 2021 to allow banks to prioritise operational continuity<br /><br />• Competent authorities should make full use, where appropriate, of flexibility embedded in existing regulation

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today the Chapter on how resolution authorities should assess institutions’ management information systems, in the context of the resolvability assessment, to ensure that data and information are swiftly provided to support a robust valuation for resolution (valuation MIS). This Chapter, which is part of the EBA Handbook on valuation for purposes of resolution, aims at enhancing institutions’ preparedness in business as usual to support a timely and robust valuation in case of resolution.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an Opinion on the treatment of credit insurance in the prudential framework, in response to the extensive feedback received in its public consultations on draft Guidelines on credit risk mitigation for institutions applying the Internal Ratings-Based Approach (IRB Approach) with own estimates of Loss Given Default (LGD). In this Opinion the EBA calls for the implementation of the final Basel III framework as agreed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a call for expression of interest for membership to its new Banking Stakeholder Group (BSG), as a consequence of the ESAs Review process that took place in 2019 and entered into force in January 2020.<br />The mandate of the current members will expire on 30 June 2020. The call for expression of interest is open to candidates representing stakeholders across the European Union. The deadline for application is 3 April 2020.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a consultation to update the identification methodology of global systemically important institutions (G-SIIs) and related capital buffer rates. The need for this revision was prompted, on one hand, by the revised framework for global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) published by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) in July 2018 and, on the other hand, by the recent mandate given to the EBA to draft an additional methodology for the allocation of G-SII buffer rates to identified G-SIIs. The consultation runs until 5 June 2020.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) announced today additional measures to mitigate the spreading and risk of infection with the coronavirus. These measures will affect all stakeholders participating in external meetings hosted by the EBA and work travel of all EBA staff with the exception of critical business meetings.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an Opinion following the notification by the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) of its intention to extend a measure introduced in 2018 regarding the use of Article 458 of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR). The measure is primarily driven by persistent macroprudential risks in the Belgian economy related to a substantial level of systemic risk in banks’ mortgage portfolios and of macrofinancial vulnerabilities. Based on the evidence submitted, the EBA does not object to the extension of the proposed measure, which will be applied from 1 May 2020 to 30 April 2021.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its Report assessing institutions’ Pillar 3 disclosures, which aims atidentifying best practices and potential areas for improvement. While the EBA observes overall progress in institutions’ prudential disclosures, some practices may still impair the proper communication of their risk profile in a comparable way, compromising the ultimate objective of market discipline.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a Report on the review of the Regulatory Technical Standard (RTS) specifying the minimum monetary amount of the professional indemnity insurance (PII) or comparable guarantee for mortgage credit intermediaries. The EBA assessed the information obtained from national authorities, from a sample of intermediaries and through desk-based research and concluded that no amendments to the RTS are currently required.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an updated list of institutions, which have a reporting obligation for the purpose of the 2020 EU supervisory benchmarking exercise. The EBA runs this exercise leveraging on established data collection procedures and formats of regular supervisory reporting and assists Competent Authorities in assessing the quality of internal approaches used to calculate risk weighted exposure amounts.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its first quantitative Report on minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) under a new methodology. The report shows that authorities have made strong progress in agreeing resolution strategies and setting related MREL requirements but it also notes that banks need to issue MREL eligible debt to close their shortfall.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) acknowledged today the adoption by the European Commission of the Implementing Act amending Regulation (EU) No 680/2014 (Implementing Technical Standards on Supervisory Reporting) with regard to COREP and FINREP changes. The Implementing Act, which is based on the final draft Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on supervisory reporting submitted by the EBA in July 2019, was adopted by the Commission on 14 February 2020 but its publication in the EU Official Journal is still pending. The amendments to the reporting framework will apply with different reference dates due to different application dates of the underlying regulatory requirements. The first reference date, concerning COREP changes, will be 31 March 2020 (reporting framework v2.9).