Press releases

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its fourth thematic comparative Report on recovery planning. The focus of this comparative analysis is recovery options, which are crucial for assessing institutions’ actual capacity to regain viability following a period of severe financial distress. Overall, recovery plans in the sample provided a good overview of recovery options and clear improvements were seen across the board, although some challenges still remain. This benchmarking exercise aims at supporting supervisors in their assessment to identify the crucial elements that banks should consider when designing and selecting credible recovery options.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) organised on 1 and 2 March 2017 a Joint Colloquium with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on ‘New Frontiers on Stress Testing’. The workshop brought together economists, supervisors and policy makers at European and global level with the objective of stimulating the discussion on different aspects of stress testing ranging from the latest methodologies and frameworks for the implementation of liquidity stress tests to macroeconomic variables, capital planning and governance.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation on its draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) specifying the nature, severity and duration of an economic downturn according to which institutions shall estimate the downturn loss given default (LGD) and conversion factor (CF). These draft RTS are part of the EBA’s broader work on the review of the IRB approach aimed at reducing the unjustified variability in the outcomes of internal models, while preserving the risk sensitivity of capital requirements. The consultation runs until 29 May 2017.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its eleventh Report of the CRDIV-CRR/Basel III monitoring exercise on the European banking system. This exercise, run in parallel with the one conducted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) at a global level, presents aggregate data on capital ratios – risk-based and non-risk-based (leverage) – and liquidity ratios – the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) and net stable funding ratio (NSFR) – for banks across the European Union (EU). It summarises the results using data as of 30 June 2016 but does not reflect any BCBS standards agreed since the beginning of 2016, such as the revisions to the market risk framework, or any other BCBS proposals, which have not yet been finalised, including the revisions to credit and operational risk frameworks.

The Board of Supervisors of the European Banking Authority (EBA) agreed in its meeting held on 14 February on the tentative timeline of the 2018 EU-wide stress test. The exercise is expected to be launched at the beginning of 2018 and the results to be published in mid-year. The EBA, in co-operation with Competent Authorities, is now in the process of preparing the methodology and templates with the objective of discussing with the industry in summer 2017. The new methodology will be revised to take into account the implementation of IFRS 9 both in the starting points as well as in the projections.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on strong customer authentication and common and secure communication. These RTS, which were mandated under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and developed in close cooperation with the European Central Bank (ECB), pave the way for an open and secure market in retail payments in the European Union.

The European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs – European Banking Authority, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority) have published a statement in response to industry requests relating to operational challenges in meeting the deadline of 1 March 2017 for exchanging variation margin.

The three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA - ESAs) published today a joint Opinion addressed to the European Commission on the risks of money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) affecting the European Union’s financial sector. This Opinion will contribute to the European Commission’s risk assessment work as well as that of the ESAs of fostering supervisory convergence and a level playing field in the area of anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT).

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an update to the XBRL taxonomy that Competent Authorities should use for the remittance of data under the EBA Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on supervisory reporting. The revised taxonomy will be used for reference dates from 30 June 2017 onwards and includes changes and corrections to validation rules.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) welcomed the adoption by the European Commission (EC) of its Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on supervisory reporting. In accordance with an Opinion issued by the EBA, the remittance dates of the first set of supervisory reports will be postponed from April/May 2014 to end June 2014, but there is no change to reference dates. This decision will ensure legal coherence and clarity given the later than scheduled entry into force of the ITS.

In an Opinion issued today, the EBA welcomed the Commission’s proposal to bring virtual currency exchange platforms and custodian wallet providers within the scope of the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. The Authority also makes several recommendations aimed at supporting the consistent pan-EU implementation and supervision of the proposals that the Commission had published on 5 July 2016.

The Joint Committee of the three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA - ESAs) launched today a public consultation on draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) to help Member States determine when payment service providers and electronic money issuers should appoint a Central Contact Point (CCP) to support the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. These draft RTS are part of the Joint Committee's work to establish consistent and effective risk-based supervisory practices across the EU. The consultation runs until 5 May 2017.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an updated list of institutions, which have a reporting obligation for the purpose of the 2017 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 Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) launched today a consultation on a proposal to set minimum requirements, which manufacturers of packaged retail and insurance-based investment products with environmental or social objectives (EOS PRIIPs) should comply with to ensure that credible products are offered to retail investors. This consultation is in response to a European Commission’s call for advice.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) specifying the procedures for excluding transactions with non-financial counterparties (NFCs) established in a third country from the capital requirement for credit valuation adjustment (CVA) risk. The proposed RTS aim at harmonising the treatment of NFCs established in a third country across EU Member States.