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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

Clarification of remote payment for dynamic linking

Is a SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) transaction, whereby a user mobile phone interacts locally via Near Field Communication (NFC) with a merchant payment terminal to initiate the SCT transaction, whereby the user mobile phone does not communicate remotely over a mobile network for this purpose but whereby the payment terminal connects on-line to a payment system and handles the required strong customer authentication (SCA) through this on-line channel, considered an electronic remote payment transaction?

  • 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

ASPSP restricting access for TPPs who embeds the redirect

Do Account Servicing Payment Service Providers (ASPSPs) have the right to block access to payment accounts for a Third Party Provider (TPP) who embeds the ASPSP-provided redirection website in order to provide the Payment Service User (PSU) with a TPP-provided user interface?

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

Payment Initiation Service - Batch payment / bulk payment

Can you apply the PSD2 non-discrimination principle to batch/bulk payment?

  • 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 exemption under Article 10 RTS and EBICS T

Can an Account Servicing Payment Service Provider (ASPSP) consider that it is not applying the Article 10 Exemption under the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389 “at all” where it permits its Payment Services Users (PSUs) to access balances and transactions information through another direct interface (such as Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard (EBICS) T) with no systematic or daily 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

Re-engineering by TPP of the ASPSP’s redirect API and PSU customer journey

May a Payment Initiation Services Provider (PISP) connect to the dedicated interface of the ASPSP, only to subsequently embed (“screen scrape”) the redirection approach into their own environment, without redirecting the PSU to the ASPSP’s mobile banking app, for authentication?  Are Third-Party Providers (TPPs) allowed to re-engineer the customer journey designed by the ASPSP to the effect that authentication of the PSU will take place in the TPP domain?

  • 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

SCA requirements with dynamic linking for mobile initiated credit transfers (MSCTs)

Can mobile initiated credit transfers (MSCT) solutions whereby a proximity technology (e.g. NFC, QR-code, BLE, etc.) is used for the exchange of payer identification data between the payer’s mobile device and the payee’s payment terminal but a mobile network is used (e.g. by a dedicated app) on the payer’s mobile device for the payer authentication, be considered as a proximity payment whereby strong customer authentication (SCA) may apply without requiring dynamic linking?

  • 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

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

Treatment of tax accounts

Can a tax account be treated as a level 1 asset according to Article 10(1)(c) Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/16, and be included in the liquidity buffer?

  • 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

Classification of “Undrawn term loans” under Article 23(1)(b) LCR DA

Where the drawdown of undrawn term loans is gradually disbursed in phases over a certain drawing window and where these drawdowns are contingent to predefined milestones whereby the credit institution has to evaluate whether the milestone is achieved, could these term loans be classified as ‘Undrawn loans and advances to wholesale customers’ according to Article 23(1)(b) of the Commission 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

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

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

Transactions in the banking book where no strike is available

For a put option in the non-trading book, where there is no guaranteed minimum payment and the price will only be determined after the occurrence of specified events i.e. there is no strike price for the put option, how would the notional amount be calculated in accordance with Article 15(f)(1)(b)(ii) of Regulation (EU) No 241/2014? Should the notional be determined based on an equity delta equivalent amount?

  • 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

Client servicing in the definition of the trading book

According to Article 4(1)(85) and (86) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 CRR, are all proprietary positions and all positions arising from client servicing and market making trading book positions, irrespective if they are held for short term or not?

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

Interaction between 45f(3) and 45f(4) BRRD

In case of a “daisy chain” structure involving three entities (resolution entity, intermediate entity which is subsidiary of the resolution entity and subsidiary of the intermediate entity) which are all in the same Member State, how and with respect to which paragraph of Article 45f ofDirective 2014/59/EU (BRRD) should resolution authorities and institutions proceed to assess waiver requests? Is any of the two potentially applicable paragraphs (Article 45f(3) and 45f (4)) required to be privileged/rejected? Should they be combined? Also, in such a situation: a) Could you confirm that the impossibility to meet conditions under one paragraph (for instance, intermediate entity in shortfall or cross-border SPE) does not preclude requesting a waiver and the request being examined based on the other paragraph? b) Regarding condition set out in article 45f (3)(d) and 45f(4)(d) )BRRD, which entity should be the guarantor, the resolution entity or the parent entity? How to interpret/ apply these two options in case there is no MREL target set at the parent level but only at resolution entity level? c) In case the interpretation is that in order for an indirect subsidiary of a resolution entity to be granted a waiver from the application of internal MREL, its direct parent must comply with a sub-consolidated MREL target in the same MS (Article 45f(4) BRRD/12h(2) SRMR), can you clarify if the condition set out in Article 45f(4)(b) BRRD/12h(2)(b) SRMR requiring the (direct) parent undertaking to comply with the sub-consolidated MREL requirement referred to in Article 45a(1) BRRD/12a(1) SRMR is met if such parent undertaking is in shortfall but has been granted a MREL waiver? A final related question in case of entities subject to BRRD is whether, when assessing the condition under paragraphs 45f (3)(f) and 45f (4)(f) BRRD on ownership of 50% of voting rights in the subsidiary, such ownership should be assessed both directly and indirectly (direct/ indirect control).

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

Treatment of covered deposits when determining the contribution base of Investment Firms

Can the liabilities that arise by virtue of holding clients' money with investment firms, and that are then deposited by investment firms with a credit institution, be considered as deposits that are deducted from the Contribution Base when determining the ex-ante contribution of those investment firms to a resolution financing arrangement?

  • Legal act: Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/63 - DR on ex ante contributions to resolution financing arrangements

Contributions to the financing arrangements from ceased banks

Do institutions that cease to exist or to be supervised in a given year prior to the determination or raising of the annual contributions still have to contribute to the financing arrangements?

  • Legal act: Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/63 - DR on ex ante contributions to resolution financing arrangements

Definition of "total liabilities"

Does the reference to ‘total liabilities’ in Article 3(11) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/63 mean liabilities and capital, or only liabilities?

  • Legal act: Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/63 - DR on ex ante contributions to resolution financing arrangements

Clarification on EBA Final Q&A 2015_2469 / Exemption from bail-in of liabilities to institutions in order to avoid risk of systemic contagion

The answer to Q&A 2015_2469 clarifies that the exception to bail-in in Article 44(2)(e) of Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD) captures inter-bank unsecured liabilities with an original maturity of less than seven days. Does this exception apply to all inter-institutional unsecured liabilities with an original maturity of less than seven days? In other words, does this exception also capture the liabilities of investment firms that are defined as institutions in Article 2(1)(23) BRRD, alongside the liabilities of other banks or credit institutions?

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

Application of the provisions described in paragraphs 10 to 12 of Article 133 (systemic risk buffer, SyRB)

How do the provisions described in paragraphs 10 to 12 of Article 133 of Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD) apply when a Member State (MS) sets a domestic systemic risk buffer (SyRB) rate on all or some of the relevant exposures of that MS and, additionally, wants to recognize a SyRB rate activated by another MS, which applies to the same exposures (or some of them)?

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

Estimation of default probability and loss given default under the internal default risk model for a trading book position, where those estimates are not available at trade date under an approved IRB approach

Should an institution that has been granted permission to estimate own default probabilities or own default probabilities and losses given default in accordance with Section 1 of Chapter 3 of Title II of the CRR, be required to use such methodology for calculating default probability or loss given default under the internal default risk model for a trading book position, where the default probability or loss given default estimates are not available at trade date under such methodology for the corresponding obligor or facility?

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