Press releases

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final Guidelines on the limited network exclusion under the Payment Service Directive (PSD2). These Guidelines clarify how national competent authorities should assess whether a network of service providers or a range of goods and services qualify as ‘limited’ and are, therefore, not subject to the Directive. Payment instruments that might benefit from this exclusion include store cards, fuel cards, public transport cards, and meal vouchers. The Guidelines aim at addressing significant inconsistencies on how this exclusion has in the past been applied across the EU, contributing to the Single Market for payment services in the EU and ensuring transparency for supervisors and customers.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its Reports on the annual market and credit risk benchmarking exercises. These exercises aim at monitoring the consistency of risk weighted assets (RWAs) across all EU institutions authorised to use internal approaches for the calculation of capital requirements. Regarding market risk, for the majority of participating banks, the results confirm low dispersion in the initial market valuation (IMVs) and increased dispersion in the VaR submissions. For credit risk, the variability of RWA remained rather stable, despite the pandemic and banks’ efforts to re-develop or re-calibrate their models to comply with the policies set out in the EBA internal rating-based (IRB) roadmap.  A particular focus has been put on analysing the impact of the pandemic and the compensating public measures on the IRB models.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today the findings of its assessment of competent authorities’ responses to the 2020 Luanda leaks. The EBA found that competent authorities across the EU adopted significantly different approaches for identifying and tackling money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) risks highlighted by the leaks. These approaches varied beyond what the EBA would have expected under a risk-based approach.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its updated questionnaires used for the assessment of regulatory and supervisory frameworks of third countries, to reflect certain provisions recently introduced by the revised prudential regulation in the EU.

​​​​​​​The European Banking Authority (EBA), in agreement with the European Commission, is adjusting the Single Rulebook Q&A process to ensure that questions are answered efficiently and within a reasonable time. In addition to these adjustments, other measures are taken to overcome a backlog of older questions received through the Q&A tool prior to 1 January 2020 when the Q&A process was updated as part of the last ESAs Review.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today an Opinion on the amendments proposed by the European Commission as regards the EBA final draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) specifying the methodology for calculating the fixed overheads requirements for investment firms in the context of the implementation of the Investment Firms Regulation (IFR). Despite having  identified a substantive change in the Commission’s version of the RTS, the EBA considers the amendments continue to strike a good balance between the flexibility and risk sensitivity required for the calculation of the fixed overheads requirement and the need for a harmonised regulatory framework.

The three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA) published today a joint report in response to the European Commission’s February 2021 Call for Advice on Digital Finance. The proposals that were put forward aim at maintaining a high level of consumer protection and addressing risks arising from the transformation of value chains, platformisation and the emergence of new ‘mixed-activity groups’ i.e. groups combining financial and non-financial activities.

The European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) – EBA, EIOPA and ESMA, held their first joint high-level conference on financial education and literacy on 1 and 2 February 2022. The conference gathered high-level government representatives as well as experts from public authorities, academia, NGOs, consumer associations and the industry to raise awareness of this important topic. It also offered a forum to share ideas and best practices and to gather input from all the stakeholders on how to tackle future challenges.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on the list of countries with an advanced economy for calculating the equity risk under the alternative standardised approach (FRTB-SA). These RTS are part of the phase 3 deliverables of the EBA roadmap for the new market and counterparty credit risk approaches.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has selected Marilin Pikaro to become the Director of its Innovation, Conduct and Consumers Department. Ms Pikaro, an Estonian national, comes with a wealth of experience in both the public and private sector. She will take up her new role on 1 March 2022, and will be responsible for the EBA’s thematic and policy work on digital finance and information and communication technology (ICT) and security risks, consumer protection, and Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT). This appointment is part of the EBA’s changes to its internal organisation, which entered into force as of 1 June 2021, with the aim of fostering synergies, increasing focus, and developing staff.

​​​​​​​The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today its central database for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT). This European reporting System for material CFT/AML weaknesses, EuReCA, will be central to coordinating efforts by competent authorities and the EBA to prevent and counter money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks in the Union.

The three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, ESMA and EIOPA) published today a Joint ESAs thematic repository on financial education and digitalisation initiatives of National Competent Authorities (NCAs), with a specific focus on cybersecurity, scams and fraud. The repository contains 127 national initiatives that provide consumers with helpful information on how to improve their financial literacy. In addition, the EBA also published the second edition of its general repository of national education initiatives in the banking sector, which contains another 200 initiatives.

​​​​​​​The three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA – ESAs) published today a statement welcoming the European Systemic Risk Board’s (ESRB) Recommendation on systemic cyber risk, which calls on the ESAs to prepare for the gradual development of a Pan-European systemic cyber incident coordination framework (EU-SCICF). This will support an effective and coordinated response at EU-level in the event of a major cross-border cyber incident that could have a systemic impact on the Union’s financial sector.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final Report on amendments to its Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on currencies with constraints on the availability of liquid assets in the context of the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR). The proposed amendments remove the Norwegian Krone (NOK) from the list. As a result, no currency will be recognised as having constraints on the availability of liquid assets.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published today its final draft implementing technical standards (ITS) on Pillar 3 disclosures on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risks. The final draft ITS put forward comparable disclosures to show how climate change may exacerbate other risks within institutions’ balance sheets, how institutions are mitigating those risks, and their ratios, including the GAR, on exposures financing taxonomy-aligned activities, such as those consistent with the Paris agreement goals.