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The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an Opinion in response to the European Commission’s intention to amend the EBA’s final draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) on assigning risk weights to specialised lending exposures before endorsing them. The EBA is of the view that the proposed changes, despite their substantive nature, do not alter the draft RTS in a significant manner, as they still maintain a good balance between the flexibility and risk sensitivity required for the IRB approach and the need for a harmonised regulatory framework.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) updated today its Guidelines on the equivalence of confidentiality and professional secrecy regimes by adding the State Department of Financial Services (United States) to the current list of non-EU (third country) supervisory authorities whose confidentiality regimes can be regarded as equivalent. The EBA Guidelines are designed to help EU authorities in their assessment of third country equivalence and to facilitate cooperation with third country supervisory authorities and their participation in supervisory colleges overseeing international banks.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its quarterly Risk Dashboard covering Q4 2019 data and summarising the main risks and vulnerabilities in the EU banking sector. Ahead of the Corona crisis, EU banks’ capital ratios and asset quality have improved. However, return on equity (RoE) has further worsened.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today a new release of the reporting framework 2.10, which includes the validation rules, the Data Point Model (DPM) dictionary and XBRL taxonomies. The technical package reflects the updated EBA Guidelines on Funding Plans, and integrates reporting of remuneration and fraudulent payments into the DPM and XBRL taxonomies.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today two Reports, which measure the impact of implementing the final Basel III reforms and monitor the current implementation of liquidity measures in the EU. Being based on June 2019 reporting date, these results do not reflect the economic impact of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on participating banks. Overall, the EBA estimates that the Basel III reforms, once fully implemented in 2028 after the additional delay of one year agreed by the Basel Committee, would determine an average increase by 16.1% of EU banks' Tier 1 minimum required capital. The liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) of EU banks, which was fully implemented in January 2018, stood at around 147% on average in June 2019.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) updated today the 2019 list of Other Systemically Important Institutions (O-SIIs) in the EU. O-SIIs - those institutions which, along with Global Systemically Important Institutions (G-SIIs), are deemed systemically important - have been identified by the relevant authorities across the Union according to harmonised criteria provided by the EBA Guidelines. This list also reflects the additional capital buffers that the relevant authorities have set for the identified O-SIIs. The list of O-SIIs is available also in a user-friendly visualisation tool, including the information on O-SII buffers assigned to identified institutions across the EU.

In light of the turbulence caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the need for potential applicants to focus on other issues, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has decided to extend the deadline of the call for expression of interest for its Banking Stakeholder Group (BSG) to 17 April at 23.59 CET. This extension will allow more time to all interested stakeholders to apply.

Following the publication of its statement on the application of the prudential framework regarding default, forbearance and IFRS9 in light of COVID-19 measures, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published today more detailed guidance on the criteria to be fulfilled by legislative and non-legislative moratoria applied before 30 June 2020. The aim of these Guidelines is to clarify the requirements for public and private moratoria, which if fulfilled, will help avoid the classification of exposures under the definition of forbearance or as defaulted under distressed restructuring.

Following its call for flexibility in the prudential framework and supervisory approaches to support lending into the real economy, the European Banking Authority (EBA) clarified today its expectations in relation to dividend and remuneration policies, provided additional guidance on how to use flexibility in supervisory reporting and recalled the necessary measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF).

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its second edition of the Financial Education Report (FER). The Report is based on the EBA financial education repository, which consists of more than 120 financial education initiatives taken by the national authorities. The FER describes the most common approaches used by the national authorities and the lessons learned and experiences gained in the area of financial education and financial literacy. It identifies, for example, that awareness-raising campaigns remain among the key tools used by national authorities to reach wide audiences and, in certain cases, to alert consumers to potential risks they may face regarding the use of financial products and services (e.g. crypto-assets).

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on the new Internal Model Approach (IMA) under the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB). These technical standards conclude the first phase of the EBA roadmap towards the implementation of the market and counterparty credit risk frameworks in the EU.

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• 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.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.