- Question ID
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2019_4837
- Legal act
- Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
- Topic
- Liquidity risk
- Article
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425, 460
- Paragraph
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2
- COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs/Recommendations
- Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 - DR with regard to liquidity coverage requirement
- Article/Paragraph
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32(1)
- Type of submitter
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Credit institution
- Subject matter
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LCR - Treatment of securities borrowing-transactions for non-refinancing-purposes
- Question
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How should securities borrowed which were not borrowed for refinancing-purposes be recognised in the LCR?
- Background on the question
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An institution provides a securities lending-service to our customers to increase their return on portfolio.
1) In a first step our institution borrows assets (shares, bonds) from the customer. It is important to mention that the assets received from the customer neither increase the liquidity buffer nor are they used to cover short positions. Additionally a cash-collateral is provided towards the customer. This cash-collateral is booked on off-balance-accounts so there is no reduction of liquid central bank assets and furthermore no cash is leaving the institution. Regarding the claims on the Central Bank the institution is not subject to any restrictions preventing them to transfer their liquid Central Bank assets.
Having a look on the contractual relationship with the customer the institution has the contractual right to give back the assets borrowed to the customer at any time and herewith the right to receive back the cash-collateral provided simultaneously.
2) In a second step the institution lends the assets received to a third party. The lending-fee received from the third-party is rewarded towards the customer.
The mentioned borrowing-transaction is not driven by the purpose of refinancing our institution as the BCBS-standard 238 suggests, but to provide an additional service to our customers.
The mentioned fees are transferred on a monthly basis. The third party first pays a borrowing fee to our institution. After this transaction, 50 percent of the received fees are rewarded towards the customer.
- Submission date
- Final publishing date
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- Final answer
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According to Article 7(2) of the Delegated Regulation 2015/61 (LCR DA) the assets should be unencumbered in order to qualify as liquid assets. In the case laid out, the cash collateral has been provided to the customer and therefore cannot be classified as unencumbered irrespective of its accounting treatment.
Furthermore, since contingent inflows cannot be recognised according to Article 32(1) of the Delegated Regulation 2015/61 (LCR DA), an inflow due to the elimination of the encumbrance of the cash collateral posted to the lender can only be considered if both the unsecured securities lending transaction as well as the cash-collateralized securities borrowing transaction have been contractually recalled and are due within the next 30 calendar days and only if the cash will count towards the credit institution's stock of liquid assets in the LCR once it becomes unencumbered.
The assets received from the borrower and lent to a third party do not affect the LCR as they are simply passed-through by the credit institution.
As concerns the cash-collateral provided to the customer by the credit institution to borrow the assets, maintained on the client’s deposit account throughout the process and recallable at any moment is the starting point outflow to be determined according to Chapter 2 of the LCR DA.
- Status
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Final Q&A
- Answer prepared by
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Answer prepared by the EBA.