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Q&As refer to the provisions in force on the day of their publication. The EBA does not systematically review published Q&As following the amendment of legislative acts. Users of the Q&A tool should therefore check the date of publication of the Q&A and whether the provisions referred to in the answer remain the same.

Please note that the Q&As related to the supervisory benchmarking exercises have been moved to the dedicated handbook page. You can submit Q&As on this topic here.

List of Q&A's

Fulfilment of conditions reported under Article 45(a) CRR for a synthetic holding held in the banking book and with a maturity less than 1 year

Can a Bank calculate the amount of the position subject to FSE thresholds’ mechanism for CET1 capital purposes for a synthetic holding as the net position resulting after offsetting the long position in equity and the short position from the forward sale agreement with a maturity less than 1 year?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) No 241/2014 - RTS for Own Funds requirements for institutions

Place in the sequence of write down for an istrument that does not qualify as part of own funds

Where does an instrument that qualified as original own funds under the national transposition measure for point (ca) of Article 57 of Directive 2006/48/EC but does not qualify as Additional Tier 1 according to Article 489(4) fit in the sequence of write down and conversion from Article 48 of Directive 2014/59/EU? Will 48(1)(b), 48(1)(c) or 48(1)(d) be applicable to such an instrument?

  • Legal act: Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Application of disclosure templates in EBA/GL/2018/10 for O-SIIs

Does the operation of paragraphs 17, 18 and 19 of EBA/GL/2018/10 mean that the 2018 NPL Guidelines apply to all O-SIIs, even if they are not credit institutions? If so, how is this reconciled with paragraph 6 of EBA/GL/2018/10, which states that the 2018 NPL Guidelines apply to credit institutions?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2016/11 - Guidelines on disclosure requirements under Part Eight of CRR

What is considered as a dedicated interface

Payment Service Users (PSUs) communicate with an account servicing payment service provider (ASPSP) via Web using HTTP while mobile PSUs and Third Party Providers (TPPs) via REST Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) but in all cases the processing is done by the same back-end server using the same credentials, authorisations and business logic. In the case of mobile and TPP channels, the APIs are similar and are exposed from the same ASPSP’s gateway. Any issue in the back-end server will result in downtime for all channels. Clarification is required whether this solution is considered as a dedicated interface or not.

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2018/389 - RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication

Application of the LGD floor

Are there any specific requirements regarding the adjustment for the LGD floor? More specifically, is it a sufficient condition to ensure (may be on a daily basis) that the exposure weighted average LGD just needs to meet the floor on a portfolio level and the respective adjustments on the facility level are at the discretion of the bank?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

"Authorisation number" in eIDAS certificates

There are two possible interpretations of the Regulation (EU) 2018/389 (RTS) Article 34 paragraph (2) in the case of payment service providers registered in Member State “A”:1) The authorisation number is the number of the resolution of the NCA (or its predecessor in title) authorising the provision of payment services for the specific PSP, which is not the same as the Registration number appearing in the NCA’s public register.2) The authorisation number is the Registration number appearing in the NCA’s public register (which is a reference number formed based on the VAT number).Please clarify whether interpretation 2) above is in line with the requirements of the RTS? Please clarify whether the 8-digit Registration number (based on the VAT number) appearing in the NCA’s public register, and appearing as “National Identification Number” in the EBA PSD2 register or as “National Reference” in the EBA credit institution register can be used as the “authorisation number” in eIDAS certificates?

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2018/389 - RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication

Effect of bail-in tool: clarification on Article 53(3)

How should the phrase “and any obligations or claims arising in relation to it that are not accrued at the time when the power is exercised” in Article 53(3) be interpreted?

  • Legal act: Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Definition of short position

1. Can a put option which is subject to certain conditions qualify as a short position for the purposes of Article 45 CRR provided that (i) the fulfilment of the conditions depends only on the holder of the put and (ii) all the other conditions mentioned in Article 45 are met?2. In case a bank has on its banking book a holding of CET1 instruments in a financial sector entity and it buys an unconditional put option with the same underlying, which amount should be netted, either the notional value (strike price multiplied by the number of underlying instruments of the option) or the market value of the put, provided that all the other conditions mentioned in Article 45 CRR are met?3. In case the answer to question 2 is the notional value, if a put option does qualify as short position for the purposes of Article 45 CRR, how should this short position be treated for the purposes of credit risk requirements?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Specialised Lending - Interpretation of contractual arrangements that give the lender a substantial degree of control

How shall Article 147 (8)(b) CRR be interpreted when identifying ‘contractual arrangements that give the lender a substantial degree of control over the assets and the income that they generate’ in the context of real estate financing?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Compliance of (1) card data (2) SMS OTP and (3) EMV 3DS behaviour-based inherence as an authentication information with the requirements of PSD2 and RTS on SCA

Could the use of (1) card data (2) SMS One Time Password (OTP) and (3) Europay, MasterCard, Visa (EMV) 3-D secure (3DS) behaviour-based inherence information as an authentication solution be considered compliant with the PSD2 and RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication requirements?

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2018/389 - RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication

Use of credit insurance as credit risk mitigation under the standardised approach for credit risk and application of the CRM eligibility requirements to certain clauses which are typical for credit insurance contracts

Does the inclusion of a general exclusions clause (including for example, an exclusion for losses caused by a so-called nuclear event, war or a loss as a result of a fraud or dispute) in a credit insurance contract render the contract non-compliant with the credit risk mitigation (CRM) eligibility requirements for guarantees in CRR, in particular Article 213(1)(c)(iii) CRR, assuming all other conditions have been fulfilled?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Default Rate calculation

As part of the implementation of IFRS9 on the 1st of Jan 2018 banks may have also implemented a new Definition of Default. A new definition could result in a large uplift in default stock. However, by virtue of the way that new defaults are captured in COREP, the impact of this is that ‘New Defaults’ for the year could be artifically inflated by this stock adjustment due to the newly implemented definition. This inflated default rate is not representative of real ‘New Defaults’ in the year. Should default rate be reported in the data submission as reported in COREP or should the default rate by adjusted to mitigate the effects of the implementation of the new definition of default (i.e. by removing the stock adjustment facilities from the ‘New Defaults’ population and from the start of year performing population and calculate what we believe is the real 1 year default rate)? If no adjustment is made, this will distort default rate values.

  • Legal act: Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Draft ITS on Supervisory Reporting of Institutions (for benchmarking the internal approaches)

Absolute materiality threshold for Retail based on the new RTS

How to apply Article 123(c) CRR to set the absolute component of the materiality threshold in the case of transition of exposures to or from Retail.

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2016/07 - Guidelines on the application of the definition of default under Article 178 CRR

Applicability of SCA to electronically processed SEPA Direct Debits / Interpretation of EBA Q&A 2018_4359

Are mandates for direct debits which are set up without direct involvement of the payer’s PSP subject to SCA requirements?

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2018/389 - RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication

Define what is “given period of time”

What constitutes a “given period of time” as expressed in Article 4.3 (b) of the RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication?

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2018/389 - RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication

Inclusion of time taken for SCA in the performance KPI

Does the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for the performance of the dedicated interface include the time taken for conducting Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)? 

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2018/389 - RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication

Relying on vendor mechanisms processing the biometric data for strong customer authentication; Multiple fingerprint samples stored on a mobile device and used for purpose of user authentication.

Are the obligations of a payment service provider (PSP) laid down in the Article 8 of RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication fulfilled in case the biometric credentials of customer are stored at the device level and the strong customer authentication itself is processed by the mobile device? In this context, are the obligations of the PSP laid down in Article 8 and 24 of RTS on Strong Customer Authentication fulfilled in case the mobile device stores multiple fingerprint samples for user authentication?

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2018/389 - RTS on strong customer authentication and secure communication

EBA register providing a list of third party providers (TPPs)

1° Does the EBA register under PSD2 provide a list of third party providers (TPPs)?2° If yes :2.1 Could you provide a procedure to get a TPP list?2.2 Should we filter on services 5 (Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) / Card Based Payment Instrument Issuer (CBPII) use case), 7 Account Information Service Provider (AISP) and 8 Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) to get the complete list of TPP?2.3 Agents can also provide services 5a, 7 and 8: In the downloadable JSON file, it is possible to find agents who are mandated by PSPs; however, the services offered by these agents are not indicated. Are the agents mandated by a PSP providing services 5A, 7 and 8 to be included in the TPP list?2.4 is the registry downloadable automatically? If yes, how?

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2019/411 - RTS on EBA register under PSD2

Resolution plans for subsidiaries where no resolution college has been established yet

Is the national resolution authority empowered to draft an individual resolution plan, referred to in Article 10 BRRD, for an institution which is part of a (third country) group subject to consolidated supervision, where the European group-level resolution authority (GLRA) has not established the European resolution college?

  • Legal act: Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

EBA_v6217-6222 and EBA_v6224-622; EBA_v6230 validation rules (warnings) implementation

Does EBA_v6217-6222 and EBA_v6224-622; EBA_v6230 validation rules (warnings) are correctly implemented and should be applicable for all institutions?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) No 680/2014 - ITS on supervisory reporting of institutions (repealed)