After a plenary vote in the European Parliament on 8 July 2020, François-Louis Michaud was confirmed as the new Executive Director of the European Banking Authority (EBA). François-Louis Michaud, who will serve a five-year renewable term, was selected by the EBA Board of Supervisors from a shortlist of candidates compiled by the EBA Selection Committee.
The EBA Banking Stakeholder Group (BSG) held today its first meeting in its new composition. The renewed BSG, the fifth one since the establishment of the European Banking Authority (EBA) in 2011, was agreed by the EBA Board of Supervisors at its meeting on 17 June 2020. The 30 selected members, who started their four-year mandate on 1 July 2020, will provide advice to the EBA on its policy work and must be consulted on technical standards, guidelines and recommendations.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a Report, which provides clarifications on the application of the prudential framework that have been raised as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemics. This Report is part of the EBA’s wider monitoring of the implementation of COVID-19 policies as well as of the application of existing policies under these exceptional circumstances.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final Guidelines on the treatment of structural FX positions. The aim of these Guidelines is to establish a harmonised framework for the application of the structural FX waiver, which will allow its consistent application going forward. The Guidelines will be applicable from 1 January 2022, one year later than originally envisaged to ensure that institutions have time to prepare for the introduction of the requirements.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its response to the European Commission’s consultation on a new Digital Finance Strategy for Europe. The EBA is committed to securing technology neutrality in regulatory and supervisory approaches and strongly supports the Commission’s initiative towards a new Digital Finance Strategy. The EBA identifies in its response a wide range of possible EU-level actions to support the scaling of innovative technology cross-border whilst ensuring high standards of consumer protection and financial sector resilience. The EBA looks forward to the publication of the Digital Finance Strategy and stands ready to play its role in optimising the EU Single Market for digital finance.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a discussion paper exploring ways on how to enhance the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) framework on early intervention measures. The objective is to further enhance crisis management tools available for competent authorities in addition to well-established and widely used supervisory powers laid down in the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) and in the Single Supervisory Mechanism Regulation (SSMR).
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today new Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on public disclosures by institutions and revised final draft ITS on supervisory reporting that implements changes introduced in the revised Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR2) and the Prudential Backstop Regulation. The publication of the two ITS is a major step forward towards promoting market discipline through enhanced and comparable public disclosures for stakeholders, and towards keeping the reporting requirements in line with the evolving needs for Supervisory Authorities' risk assessments.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on the criteria to identify all categories of staff whose professional activities have a material impact on the institutions’ risk profile (“risk takers”). The objective of these RTS is to define and harmonise the criteria for the identification of such staff and to ensure a consistent approach across the EU. The identification process is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative criteria.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its Final draft amending Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) and Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on passport notification. The two sets of amending technical standards increase the quality and consistency of information to be provided by a credit institution notifying its home competent authorities when it intends to open a branch or provide services in another Member State, as well as of the communication between home and host authorities.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has decided today to extend the application date of its Guidelines on legislative and non-legislative moratoria to 30 September 2020. With EU economies not yet fully opened, this extension shows the importance of a continued support to the measures taken by banks to extend loans in response to the extraordinary nature of the current situation. This extension would ensure that adequate treatment for borrowers is available across the EU, considering that the Covid-19 crisis has been affecting EU countries in a different way and at a different pace.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its first peer review of stress tests and the resilience of Deposit Guarantee Scheme (DGSs). The purpose of the peer review was to assess the resilience of DGSs based on the results of the DGS stress tests, and to identify good practices and areas for improvement.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has expanded the scope of its Questions and Answers (Q&A) process and tool to enable the submission of questions on the Anti-Money-Laundering Directive and Consumer Protection legislation under the EBA’s scope. Going forward, submitted questions, subject to meeting the prescribed criteria, will be published on the EBA website while their answers are being prepared. The EBA has also made some changes to expand and update its online Interactive Single Rulebook.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) issued today a call for input to understand the scale and drivers of ‘de-risking‘ at EU level and its impact on customers. This call, which forms part of the EBA’s work to lead, coordinate and monitor the EU financial sector’s AML/CFT efforts, aims primarily to understand why financial institutions choose to de-risk instead of managing the risks associated with certain sectors or customers. This call for input is of interest to stakeholders across the financial sector and its users, as the EBA wants to hear from all groups affected by de-risking. The call for input runs until 11 September 2020.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its 2019 Annual Report, which provides a detailed account of all the work the Authority achieved in the past year and anticipates the key areas of focus in the coming year.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) submitted today its response to the European Commission’s public consultation on the review of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). The EBA welcomes this consultation, and agrees with the need to revise the NFRD so as to meet the demand for relevant, reliable and comparable company disclosure on non-financial matters. The EBA also highlights the need to increase standardisation by setting out mandatory rather than voluntary requirements, so as to ensure comparable disclosures. Finally, the EBA supports this review as a good opportunity to expand the scope of companies covered by the NFRD, in a proportionate way.The European Banking Authority (EBA) submitted today its response to the European Commission’s public consultation on the review of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). The EBA welcomes this consultation, and agrees with the need to revise the NFRD so as to meet the demand for relevant, reliable and comparable company disclosure on non-financial matters. The EBA also highlights the need to increase standardisation by setting out mandatory rather than voluntary requirements, so as to ensure comparable disclosures. Finally, the EBA supports this review as a good opportunity to expand the scope of companies covered by the NFRD, in a proportionate way.
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) launched today a consultation on draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) specifying the prudential treatment of software assets. As the banking sector is moving towards a more digital environment, the aim of these draft RTS is to achieve an appropriate balance between the need to maintain a certain margin of conservatism in the prudential treatment of software assets and their relevance from a business and an economic perspective. The consultation runs until 09 July 2020.
The three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA - ESAs) will organise a public hearing on proposed environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure standards for financial market participants, advisers and products.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today the seventh EU-wide transparency exercise. This additional data disclosure comes as a response to the outbreak of COVID-19 and provides market participants with bank-level data as of 31 December 2019, prior to the start of the crisis. The data confirms the EU banking sector entered the crisis with solid capital positions and improved asset quality, but also shows the significant dispersion across banks.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched a consultation on draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on the capitalisation of non-modellable risk factors (NMRFs) for institutions using the new Internal Model Approach (IMA) under the FRTB (Fundamental Review of the Trading Book). These draft RTS are one of the key deliverables included in the roadmap for the new market and counterparty credit risk approaches published on 27 June 2019. The consultation runs until 4 September 2020.