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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

Rating of subsidiaries

Is “separately rated” in Article 172(1)(d) to be interpreted as “rated on individual information” or as ”having own rating based on a separate rating process”? Alternatively put: How is “separately rated” in Article 172(1)(d) to be interpreted?

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

Determination of proxy spreads for the calculation of CVA risk under the advanced method

1. Does Article383 (1) CRR in connection with regulation 526/2014 (RTS) in principle allow to waive one or more of the attributes of rating, industry and region when determining a proxy credit spread for the advanced method for the determination of own funds requirements for credit valuation adjustment (CVA) risk? 2. What is the minimum granularity (number of categories) that a credit spread proxy must reflect to be appropriate with respect to the attributes of rating, industry and region of the counterparty?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) No 526/2014 - RTS on proxy spread and limited smaller portfolios for CVA risk

Items associated with particular high risk

Does the term "investments" in letters (a) investments in venture capital firms, (b) investments in AIFs (...) and (c) investments in private equity include only exposures in the form of shares or units in (equity of) venture capital firms, AIFs, and private equity, or it is related to all forms of exposures (e.g. debt and equity instruments, units and shares in CIUs, etc.)?

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

Clarification is sought on the treatment of defined benefit pension funds for the purposes of determining market risk RWA

Article 41(1) or Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR) and EBA Q&A 2014_1567 clarify that with respect to credit risk RWA, only the assets according to Article 41(1)(b), i.e. the assets for which the institution has an unrestricted ability to use and that have been use to reduce the CET1 deduction amount, must be captured for credit risk RWA purposes. We would like to reconfirm that the same treatment applies for market risk RWA, e.g. with respect to FX risk.

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

Max amount of cash leverage in the mandate of an AIF in order to NOT be considered as a high risk exposure

What is the maximum permitted “cash leverage” allowed in the mandate of the alternative investment fund (AIF) in order not be considered high risk?In the event the AIF is NOT considered to be high risk, should then Article 132 CRR be taken as reference?

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

Treatment of irrevocable payment commitments according to Article 103(3) BRRD

How should payment commitments pursuant to Article 103(3) BRRD (Directive 2014/59/EU) be treated in the capital requirements for credit risk?

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

Delta equivalent amount of cash-or-nothing digital (binary) options

Should the delta equivalent amount of cash-or-nothing digital (binary) options be limited to the maximum possible payment at expiry?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Regulation (EU) No 528/2014 - RTS on non-delta risk of options in the standardised market risk approach

Assignment of exposures to exposure class of Public Sector Entities

Can only the entities having legal forms of non-profit associations and foundations qualify as PSE-s and be assigned to exposure class of PSEs, or could PSEs also include legal forms of either public or private limited liability companies, which are either owned by or set up and sponsored by central governments, regional governments or local authorities and are under public supervision?

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

Clarification on "explicit guarantee arrangements"

The CRR definition of "“public sector entity" lists "has explicit guarantee arrangements" as one of the requirements, without further explaining or limiting this requirement. Does CRR require that all or the greater part of the entities liabilities feature an explicit guarantee by its owners or sponsor which the entity's creditors can call on? Or is "explicit guarantee arrangements" to be understood to also cover other explicit support arrangements like e.g. a guarantee on the entity's lendings for the benefit of the entity or a commitment by the owners/sponsors to guarantee the entity's ability to fulfil its obligations on its liabilities?

  • 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

AT1 distribution and full year loss

Except what is provided under Article 141 of the CRD, is there any restriction imposed on distribution for an institution posting a full year (FY) Net Loss ? (assuming th entity in question runs with excess capital vs. regulatory requirements, so it's not under MDA restrictions)

  • Legal act: Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Capital requirement regard to own debt instruments.

Should institutions encounter own debt instruments in calculating own funds requirements for position risk?

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

Risk weight for exposures to central-government-risk PSEs with an original maturity of 3 months or less, which are denominated in foreign currency

May exposures to PSEs established in a Member State, whose level of risk in the opinion of the competent authority of the Member State in question does not differ from the level of risk of the central government, be assigned a risk weight of 20% in accordance with Article 116(3) CRR if they are denominated in foreign currency?

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

Relevant competent authority to determine the same risk weight treatment as the central government

Who is the relevant competent authority to determine if the same treatment of regional government exposure and central government exposure can be applied? The national supervisor, the European Commission or the ECB?

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

Exposure Value under the Equity method of accounting

What exposure value should be used for Large Exposure purposes in situations where there is a difference between the accounting value used for IFRS accounting purposes and the value used for FinRep regulatory purposes?

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

Expected outflows from derivatives

Could a designated/purpose-specific transaction structure consisting of two Total Return Swaps (“TRS”) on the same underlying basket of non-HQLA eligible equities with the same non-bank market counterparty where one physically settled TRS delivers the performance of the equity basket to the counterparty until the point in time when the bank elects to early terminate the transaction and the other cash settled TRS delivers the performance of the equity basket to the bank until maturity be treated as a net derivative inflow for the bank, within the LCR according to Article 32(5) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61?

  • 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

CRD Art. 140(4) in conjuction with CRR Art. 327 and CRR Art. 112

For the purpose of reporting as per point 3.4.3.2 of Annex 2 (Annex 2 of EC Implementing Act on Reporting) page 109 ''Own funds requirements for relevant credit exposures, trading book exposures and securitisation exposures in accordance with Article 140(4) CRD and determined in accordance with Part Three, Title II and Title IV of the CRR'' , are the referred CRR Art 112 restrictions under CRD Art 140(4) applicable also to IRB and also specifically for the purpose of point (b) Art 140(4) do the restrictions of CRR Art. 112 apply considering CRR Art. 327?

  • 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)

Cash variation margin received in the same currency of settlement of the derivative contract

Second sub para. of Art. 429a(3) of the leverage ratio Delegated Regulation indicates that: "For the purposes of point (c) of the first subparagraph, where the derivative contract is subject to a qualifying master netting agreement, the currency of settlement means any currency of settlement specified in the derivative contract, the governing qualifying master netting agreement or the credit support annex to the qualifying master netting agreement.” As "currency of settlement" is not sufficiently specified and differs from standard market documentation terminology, we we would request to provide further explanation on the interpretation of “currency of settlement”.

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/62 - DR with regard to the leverage ratio

Liquidity waiver for institutions controlled by EU parent financial holding company

Regarding the application of Article 8 (1) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR), can it be considered to extend the option to accept a liquidity sub-group to cases where the parent company is a EU parent financial holding company owning a single credit institution or a single investment firm, if all the conditions laid out in article 8 (1) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR) are met?

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

Deductions of holdings of own funds instruments issued by financial sector entities included in the scope of consolidated supervision under art 49.2 CRR

For what specific purposes competent authorities may determine deductions of holdings of own funds instruments issued by financial sector entities included in the scope of consolidated supervision, apart from purposes mentioned in art 49.2: i.e. structural separation of banking activities and resolution planning? Should competent authorities determine deductions for all institutions in the member state or should it be more institution specific decision? In case of institution specific decision, should it be subject to joint decision, taken by the competent authorities of the home and host Member States?

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

Confirmation of waiver in particular situations

Is it confirmed that the waiver of the provisions in respect of deduction applies to capital instruments or subordinated loans that an entity holds or has granted temporarily for the purposes of a financial assistance operation designed to reorganize and save another entity even prior to the CRR/CRDIV regulations coming into force? Is it confirmed that the waiver of the provisions in respect of deduction for capital instruments or subordinated loans envisaged for the purposes of a financial assistance operation designed to reorganize and save the entity still applies also with reference to holdings already acquired but still necessary for the purposes of the financial assistance operation?

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