EBA highlights main achievements in 2021 in its Annual Report

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published its Annual Report which describes in detail the activities and achievements of the Authority in 2021 and provides an overview of the key priorities for the coming year.

2021 was a year of challenges and important changes for the EBA. The Authority continued to work under the exceptional circumstances brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, proving once more its ability to reprioritise its tasks and quickly adapt to external events. The EBA also underwent meaningful organisational changes to reflect the shifting priorities of its mandates and work programme. In particular, the reorganisation saw the creation of new Units to reflect the growing importance of topics such as digital finance, environmental, social and governance (ESG), reporting and transparency, and anti-money laundering (AML).

In 2021, the EBA continued to monitor the implementation of the Basel III regulatory framework and decided to make the Basel III monitoring exercise mandatory as of December.

In 2021, the EBA also carried out its biennial EU-wide stress test exercise, which was key in assessing the resilience of financial institutions to adverse market developments, particularly relevant in 2021 in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.

Moreover, the EBA conducted its annual EU-wide transparency exercise, which provided detailed information for 120 banks across 25 EEA / EU countries. The release of the results was accompanied by the publication of the Risk Assessment Report.

The 2021 Annual Report also includes the strategic priorities for 2022, which include the review of the stress-testing framework, the implementation of the mandates in the areaof AML/CFT, financial innovation and sustainable finance, as well as the monitoring of the impact of the Russian war against Ukraine and of the COVID-19 pandemic on the EU banking sector.

Today the EBA also published the Consolidated Annual Activity Report (CAAR) which measures the EBA’s main activities based on the efficiency and effectiveness of the internal control systems.