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The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation on reporting financial information using Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) across EU jurisdictions. This is a decentralised public consultation, which takes place through National Competent Authorities across the EU and not through the EBA, so as to allow for a better informed discussion on questions that may be specific to the individual jurisdictions across the EU. All interested stakeholders can provide feedback directly to their National Competent Authorities (NCAs) by 15 April 2016.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a Report on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which analyses (i) the evolution of lending trends and conditions for SMEs, (ii) the effective riskiness of EU SMEs over a full economic cycle and (iii) the consistency of own funds requirements laid down in the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) for credit risk on exposures to SMEs. Overall, the results of the EBA analysis show limited effectiveness of the SME Supporting Factor (SF). However, more data is needed before drawing firm conclusions and, therefore, the EBA recommends continued monitoring of the application of the SF.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation on draft Guidelines on corrections to modified duration for debt instruments. These Guidelines aim to establish what type of adjustments to the modified duration (MD) - as defined according to the formulas in the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) - have to be performed in order to appropriately reflect the effect of the prepayment risk. The consultation runs until 22 June 2016.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a Decision specifying the formula to be used by creditors when calculating the benchmark rate under the Mortgage Credit Directive (MCD). The MCD requires creditors to use, under certain circumstances, a benchmark rate specified by the EBA for the illustrative examples in the European Standardised Information Sheet (ESIS) for variable rate mortgages. The EBA formula will apply 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal but can also be used by creditors prior to its formal publication.

The EBA submitted on Friday its response to the European Commission’s Green Paper on Retail Financial Services. In the response, the EBA conveys the views of its member authorities on a subset of the questions asked in the Green Paper, with a particular focus on the risks and opportunities of digital services in the banking sector and the enforcement of consumer protection regulation in the EU.

Following the Commission’s adoption on 10 October 2014 of a Delegated Act specifying the LCR framework, the EBA has now developed amendments to the current ITS on reporting. These draft ITS will provide credit institutions with a completely new set of templates and instructions so as to capture all the necessary LCR items and to adequately ensure a proper supervisory reporting of the LCR according to the Commission’s Delegated Act. The proposed amendments are only applicable to credit institutions and not to investment firms (the latter will continue reporting the LCR items using the current instructions and templates).