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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

MREL subordination for smaller banks

Is the subordination requirement for the MREL of smaller banks (i.e. that are not G-SII or part of a G-SII, top tier banks nor banks subject to Article 45c(6)) subject to the limit of the prudential formula referred to in Article 45b(7)? Does the reference to 8% of total liabilities, including own funds, represent a cap, or does this provision include the possibility of full subordination for MREL? Are the conditions referred to in Articles 45b(7) and (8) applicable to smaller banks?

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

Services offered by means of ATM by providers

Which is the appropriate payment service for ATM withdrawals, where the ATM provider is required to be authorised but is acting on behalf of one or more card issuers, which are not a party to the framework contract with the customer withdrawing money from a payment account? 

  • Legal act: Directive 2015/2366/EU (PSD2)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Aggregation of curves in the case of real interest rate curves (linked to inflation)

When calculating the supervisory outlier test, in the case of real interest rate curves, (i.e CLF, IGPM, IPCA, UVA, CER, UDI…), how should these factor risk be treated?

  • Legal act: Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2018/02 - Guidelines on the management of interest rate risk arising from non-trading book activities

Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Chairman Credit Risk Committee

Supervisors have identified that for some credit institutions located in some EU countries the CRO acts as Chairman of the Credit Committee. The question is if this set-up can be considered as fully compliant with the applicable regulation to ensure the independence of the risk management function.

  • Legal act: Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2021/05 - Guidelines on internal governance under CRD - repealing EBA/GL/2017/11

Commitment received to upgrade collateral from Level 2B to Level 1

If a credit institution received a unilateral commitment from another credit institution to trade in 2 business days a collateral upgrade from Level 2B assets to Level 1 assets which last more than 35 business days, could this trade be considered as an inflow?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 - DR with regard to liquidity coverage requirement

Treatment of fiduciary assets for the purpose of asset encumbrance reporting

Do fiduciary assets have to be included in asset encumbrance reporting?

  • 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)

Off balance sheet items in scope of the credit risk framework

Does "off-balance sheet item" as in article 5 point (1) CRR mean: a) off-balance sheet item disclosed under the applicable accounting framework, or b) off-balance sheet item under the applicable accounting framework, irrespective whether the item is disclosed or not, or c) every position or item exposed to credit risk that is not recognised in the balance sheet, irrespective whether such position or item would be disclosed or considered as off-balance sheet item under the applicable accounting framework?

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

Consolidated supervision

At how many levels should consolidation according to Article 11 CRR be done by a single institution?

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

Risk weight of EU unrated central bank whose exposures are guaranteed by its EU government which is rated CQS1

What should be the risk weight of an EU unrated central bank whose exposures are fully guaranteed by its EU government which is rated CQS1?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2014/05 - Guidelines on significant credit risk transfer

RWA calculation and the applicable amount of insufficient coverage for non-performing exposures deducted from CET1 items

Under Article 151(1) CRR, can non-performing exposures, or parts thereof, belonging to one of the exposure classes referred to in points (a) to (e) and (g) of Article 147(2) CRR, be exempted from being risk-weighted to the extent that the related applicable amounts of insufficient coverage for those non-performing exposures have been deducted from Common Equity Tier 1 items, in accordance with Article 36(1) (m) CRR2? Can the applicable amounts of insufficient coverage for non-performing exposures belonging to one of the exposure classes referred to in points (a) to (e) and (g) of 147(2) that have been deducted from CET1 items, in accordance with Article36(1)(m) CRR, qualify as 'exposures deducted from own funds' or 'exposures deducted from Common Equity Tier 1 items, Additional Tier 1 items or Tier 2 items, for the purpose of Article151(1) CRR?

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

Issues related to para (89) of the EBA/GL/2017/16 with regards to the calibration procedure of the PD models to be conducted “after taking into account any overrides applied in the assignment of obligors to grades or pools”

With regards to the interpretation of the requirement reported in paragraph (89) of the Guidelines on PD estimation, LGD estimation and the treatment of defaulted exposures (EBA/GL/2017/16), is it correct that if a ranking method or overrides policy has changed over time, the institutions cannot “conduct the calibration after taking into account any overrides applied in the assignment of obligors to grades or pools”, because the relevant data is not available (e.g. in case of a model change the rating produced by the new PD model cannot include the override process)? With regards to the interpretation of the requirement reported in par. 89 of the GLs, is it correct that if a ranking method or overrides policy has changed over time, the institutions should “analyse the effects of these changes on the frequency and scope of overrides and take them into account appropriately” in the annual review of estimates framework, once the relevant data becomes available, meaning that the new rating attribution process has been fully deployed and used by the analysts of the Supervised Entity?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2017/16 - Guidelines on PD estimation, LGD estimation and the treatment of defaulted exposures

Provisions relating to securitised assets which have been derecognised for accounting.

Template C.14 (Sec Details col 210) requires reporting of information on securitised exposures including associated provisions. The memo standardised calculation C.14.1 (Sec Details Approach col 448) also requires provisions on underlying assets as an input to the SEC-SA calculation. What provisions should be used when the securitised exposures have been derecognised by the reporting entity from an accounting perspective and provisions are therefore not made by the originator bank reporting entity?

  • 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)

Treatment of loans for LBO financing according to the GLs on high risk items

How should loans which constitute leveraged buyout (LBO) financing be treated according to the Guidelines on  specification of types of exposures to be associated with high risk? Should information, that a loan is collateralised by shares in an unlisted company, have decisive impact on its treatment as potentially being "debt exposure with economic substance similar to non-debt exposure" according to the paragraph 2 of section 4.1 of the Guidelines? 

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2019/01 - Guidelines on specification of types of exposures to be associated with high risk under Article 128(3) of CRR

Risk weight attribution to loans guaranteed by third counterparties in NSFR

If a credit institution has granted loans to customers (Retail, SME or Corporate counterparties) where the customer has a guarantor for the loan (personal guarantees), which is a Sovereign/PSEs or a third financial institution, what risk weight should be attributed to those loans for purposes of NSFR?

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

Amended ranking requirement in point (d) of Article 63 of the CRR

Which interpretation of the new requirement in point (d) of Article 63 of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR), as amended by Regulation (EU) 2019/876 is correct?Do all banks need to amend the T&Cs of their Tier 2 instruments due to the new wording of point (d) of Article 63 of the CRR in order to be CRR-compliant (considering that there is no respective grandfathering provision in the CRR)? orDo banks for which the resolution authority does not set a subordination requirement with respect to MREL or banks for which the MREL requirement consists solely of the loss absorption amount (as the respective bank is to be wound up under normal insolvency proceedings and not subject to resolution) remain compliant with the new wording in point (d) of Article 63 of the CRR without the need to amend their respective T&Cs?

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

Grandfathering according to Articles 494a and 494b of the CRR

Should Article 494a(1) and (2) of the CRR also cover points (p), (q), and (r) of Article 52(1) and points (n), (o) and (p) of Article 63, respectively?

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

Notification to Competent Authority for the use of the adjustment referred to in Article 500 (1) CRR

Does an Institution that wants to apply the adjustment on its LGD estimates by partly or fully offsetting the effect of massive disposals of defaulted exposures on realised LGDs in line with Article 500 CRR have to notify the respective competent authority in accordance with Article 143 CRR?

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

Residual maturity of the source of encumbrance

What is the residual maturity of an ABS issued, the WAL or the FORD? For an encumbrance reason without maturity date, should we place it in the bucket Open Maturity or in the bucket 5yrs <= 10 yrs, as stated in Annex XXV, 1.1. 12 (e)

  • 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)

Failed validation checks due to the implementation of a new separate line item ‘cash contributions to resolution funds and deposit guarantee schemes’ (r385) in template F 02.00 and missing consistent change in template F 20.03 under DPM 2.9

Regardless of an institution’s view on the nature of cash contributions to resolution funds and deposit guarantee schemes in the financial statements, the introduction of a new separate line item ‘cash contributions to resolution funds and deposit guarantee schemes’ (r385) in template F 02.00 under DPM 2.9 combined with an unchanged template F 20.03 leads to a break of blocking validation rules. That shows the need for further guidance or requires an adjustment of template F 20.03 in conformity with the structure of template F 02.00 regarding single line items and totals items.

  • 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)

Use of short-term credit assessments with Article 120(2) CRR

May short-term issuer or issue ratings be used to assign risk weights in the general preferential treatment for short term exposures of article 120(2) CRR?

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