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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

Correlation G0556 of COREP C14.00

Please, can you review if the correlation G0556 of COREP C14.00 is correct?

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

Definition of NPL Ratio for EBA Dashboard and Disclosure

Please clarify, whether or not this inconsistency between NPL ratio definitions in a) EBA Dashboard and b) Disclosure is intended, and which definition is used by EBA for classifying an institute as a “High NPL Bank” (5% threshold).

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

Effective notional amount of bucket 3 in formula for interest rate risk category add-on

Article 280a(3) of the CRR establishes the formula for effective notional amount of hedging set j for calculating the interest rate risk category add-on. Shall the square value of the effective notional of bucket 3 be included in the formula?  

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

Relevance of a person association's purpose for SME supporting factor application

What is the determining criterion to classify person associations (such as joint accounts, civil law companies, etc.) as “entities engaged in an economic activity”, so that they fall under the preferential treatment of the SME supporting factor?

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

Calculation of goodwill included in the valuation of significant investments in insurance undertakings

A. For the purposes of a deduction under Article 36(1)(b) CRR, should the goodwill (Article 4(1) no. 113 and 115 CRR)  included in the valuation of significant investment                      be calculated at the acquisition date by separating any excess of the acquisition cost over the banking group’s share of the net fair value of the identifiable assets and liabilities of the insurance undertaking or be the amount disclosed as goodwill in the IFRS/NGAAP consolidated balance sheet of the parent institution (or parent financial holding company or parent mixed financial holding company, as applicable) in proportion of the participation recorded for prudential purposes (i.e. in case of participation of 100%, the full goodwill should be deducted, including also goodwill generated at the level of the insurance undertaking)?    B. Would the application of Article 49(1) CRR provide the possibility to risk weight rather than deduct the goodwill included in the valuation of significant investment in insurance undertakings?

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

SF factors

We found possible inconsistency in CRR texts related to required stable funding for level 2B securitisations notably articles 428z and 428ab

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

Implementation of Article 72b(2)(j) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (“CRR”) and whether the contractual provisions governing liabilities are required to refer to the permission regime in order for the liabilities to qualify as eligible liabilities instruments

In question 2013_544, the EBA stated that for Tier 2 instruments, Article 63(j) CRR, in conjunction with Article 77 of the CRR, stipulates that an institution must not effect the call, redemption, repayment or repurchase prior to the date of an instrument's contractual maturity without the prior permission of the competent authority, and that such instruments should therefore contain an explicit reference to these regulatory conditions in their terms. Article 72b(2)(j) CRR states that liabilities may only be called, redeemed, repaid or repurchased early where the conditions set out in Articles 77 and 78a are met. As there is no explicit positive obligation in the legislation to include a reference to the need for resolution authority approval, should eligible liabilities instruments contain an explicit reference to these regulatory conditions in their terms?

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

FCCM volatility haircuts for eligible rated and unrated securitisation collateral

Does the FCCM approach apply to unrated senior securitisation tranches that qualify as eligible collateral?  If so, which supervisory volatility haircuts apply since there is no CQS associated with these under Sec-SA? In addition, the new securtisation mappings of ECAI ratings to CQS 1-17 have not been translated into Table 1 of Article 224, which continues to refer to CQS 1-4 seemingly under the old securitisation rules, which do not reflect maturity and tranche seniority.  Which supervisory volatility haircuts apply under the new CQS mapping for rated securitisation tranches?

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

Minimum loss coverage for non-performing exposures under Article 469a

Where the terms and conditions of an exposure which was originated prior to 26 April 2019 are modified in a way that increases the institution’s exposure to the obligor, are all exposures to the obligor that was originated prior to 26 April 2019 also considered as having been originated on the date of the modification and subject to the provisions on the minimum loss coverage for non-performing exposures?

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

Custom software development and support outsourcing clarification

Company for development and maintenance of banking software has identified the following unclarities related to the EBA Guidelines on outsourcing arrangements (EBA/GL/2019/02) that were published by European Banking Authority (EBA) and for which we ask for clarification/interpretation: Is custom software development, which is based on specifications and orders from a bank, and which covers thematic area or function that the bank defined as a critical function, considered as outsourcing (in terms of the referenced guidelines) when the act of development is performed on an occasional (not recurrent and not ongoing) basis? Is regular custom software maintenance and support of software mentioned in the previous bullet point, which covers thematic area or function that the bank defined as a critical function, considered as outsourcing (in terms of the referenced guidelines) if the company providing the software maintenance and support service doesn’t have access to bank’s production environment or data from the production environment? IT department of the bank exclusively maintains their production environment, and only the bank has access to production environment data (first level support). The company offers second level support to the IT department, which consists of consultations for resolving more demanding problems, which are simulated in the test environment (without any access to the production environment). In case any of the services mentioned in the previous bullet points are considered as outsourcing (in terms of the referenced guidelines), must the contract between the company and the bank implement all guidelines or only those that are relevant for the scope of cooperation between the company and the bank? Please confirm that there is no need for the contract to cover guidelines related to cloud services and outsourcing data processing services if the company does not offer cloud services nor processes any data of the bank.  

  • Legal act: Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2019/02 - Guidelines on outsourcing arrangements

Classification of derivatives on precious metals without physical underlying under SA-CCR

For Credit Risk calculation and in order to classify derivatives into the proper Risk Category (Commodity vs. FX Risk) under SA-CCR. Can you please advise on the category to use when derivatives on Gold do not have physical underlying ? Example with a Gold Option for which only the currency for Gold is used (XAU) and where Gold is physically not existing. Also, can you please advise if the same logic have to be applied for other precious metals (not physical) like Silver or Palladium ?

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

Inclusion of undertakings other than institutions, financial institutions or ancillary undertakings in prudential consolidation

Are undertakings other than institutions, financial institutions or ancillary services undertakings unconditionally included in prudential consolidation by effect of Article 18(7) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR) and its requirement to apply the equity method, without being subject to conditions as is the case for full or proportional consolidation according to Article 18(8), or to the thresholds laid down in Article 19(1)?

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

Regular-way purchases awaiting settlement (EBA Validation rule in C 43.00 LR4 v4448_m)

According to the formula v4448_m: {C 43.00.a, r0010, c0010} <= sum({C 47.00, c0010, (r0150-0180)}) This control checks the off-balance exposure declared in the C 43.00 that is equal to the off-balance declared in the rows 0150 to 0180 in the C 47.00. With CRR2, the off-balance exposures related to regular-way purchases awaiting settlement and declared on row 0188 and 0189 of the C 47.00 are not included in the formula of v4448_m. Should these new lines not be included in the formula?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) 2021/451 – ITS on supervisory reporting of institutions

Cut-off date for the implementation of the adjustment for massive disposals

The last part of the first subparagraph of Article 500 states that "The adjustment referred to in the first subparagraph [(i.e. Adjustment for massive disposals)] may only be carried out until 28 June 2022 and its effects may last for as long as the corresponding exposures are included in the institution's own LGD estimates".  How is 28 June 2022 to be interpreted? Is it a repetition of point (b) of subparagraph 1 (i.e. "the dates of the disposals of defaulted exposures are after 23 November 2016 but not later than 28 June 2022") or it represents the cut-off date by which the adjustment can be estimated?

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

Inconsistencies between FINREP (F 02.00) and Funding Plans (P 04.01)

Will validation rule v08928_m be deactivated, temporarily? Where shall 'Cash contributions to resolution funds and deposit guarantee schemes' be included until row r0385 will be introduced in P 04.01?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2019/05 – Guidelines on harmonised definitions and templates for funding plans of credit institutions under Recommendation A4 of ESRB/2012/2 - repealing EBA/GL/2014/04

Direct and indirect funding of capital instruments

Is Article 9(1)(c) of Commission Delegated Regulation 241/2014 (RTS) applicable to the funding granted to a borrower that passes the funding on to the ultimate investor for the purchase of an institution’s capital instrument which had been issued and acquired before the funding was granted (e.g. refinancing of the purchase)? The same issue may be raised with reference to Article 8(2) and 8(3) of RTS.

  • 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

LCR treatment of open maturity reverse repos which can be terminated at any point in time

What is the LCR treatment of reverse repos with open maturity which can be terminated at any point in time? Will they be considered as regular secured lending transactions pursuant to Article 32(3)(b) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61? Or are they to be excluded since any inflows arising from the termination of those transactions are contingent?

  • 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

Risk weights for exposures towards Member States’ central governments and central banks denominated and funded in the domestic currency of that central government and central bank.

Shall exposures towards Member States’ central governments and central banks denominated in the domestic currency of that central government and central bank be given a 0% risk weight if they are funded by equity denominated in the same currency?

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

Prudential consolidation: definition of “unified management”

Article 18(3) CRR covers cases of prudential consolidation of groups of undertakings that are related to each other within the meaning of Article 22(7) of Directive 2013/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council where a parent-subsidiary relationship does not exist. The absence of a parent-subsidiary relationship creates the need to determine the entity at which level the requirements of that Regulation should be applied on a consolidated basis in such cases. Article 22(7) of Directive 2013/34/EC refers to the case where  a) two or more undertakings which are not related, as described in paragraphs 1 or 2 of Article 22, are managed on a unified basis in accordance with a contract, or a memorandum or articles of association; or b) the administrative, management or supervisory bodies of two or more undertakings which are not related, as described in paragraphs 1 or 2 of Article 22, consist of the majority of the same persons in office during the financial year and until the consolidated financial statements are drawn up. To what extent is unified management required to be considered linked for purposes of these provisions?

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

Arbitrating between security and obstacles

Can an Account Servicing Payment Service Provider (ASPSP) know a mobile phone number inside of the Third Party Provider (TPP)’s organisation in order to send a decryption password to the TPP out-of-band via SMS?   

  • 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