Article 173

1.  For exposures to corporates, institutions and central governments and central banks, and for equity exposures where an institution uses the PD/LGD approach set out in Article 155(3), the assignment process shall meet the following requirements of integrity:

(a)    Assignments and periodic reviews of assignments shall be completed or approved by an independent party that does not directly benefit from decisions to extend the credit;

(b)    Institutions shall review assignments at least annually and adjust the assignment where the result of the review does not justify carrying forward the current assignment. High risk obligors and problem exposures shall be subject to more frequent review. Institutions shall undertake a new assignment if material information on the obligor or exposure becomes available;

(c)    An institution shall have an effective process to obtain and update relevant information on obligor characteristics that affect PDs, and on transaction characteristics that affect LGDs or conversion factors.

2.  For retail exposures, an institution shall at least annually review obligor and facility assignments and adjust the assignment where the result of the review does not justify carrying forward the current assignment, or review the loss characteristics and delinquency status of each identified risk pool, whichever applicable. An institution shall also at least annually review in a representative sample the status of individual exposures within each pool as a means of ensuring that exposures continue to be assigned to the correct pool, and adjust the assignment where the result of the review does not justify carrying forward the current assignment.

3.  EBA shall develop draft regulatory technical standards for the methodologies of the competent authorities to assess the integrity of the assignment process and the regular and independent assessment of risks.

EBA shall submit those draft regulatory technical standards to the Commission by 31 December 2014.

Power is delegated to the Commission to adopt the regulatory technical standards referred to in the first subparagraph in accordance with Articles 10 to 14 of Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010.