EBA launches 2021 EU-wide transparency exercise

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today its regular EU-wide transparency exercise, whose results are expected to be published at the beginning of December. As in the past, the exercise is exclusively based on supervisory reporting data, which will keep the burden for the banks to a minimum. Transparency exercises are conducted on an annual basis and are part of the EBA's efforts to monitor risks and vulnerabilities and to reinforce market discipline.

The EBA will release nearly 2 million data points, on average more than 16,000 data points per bank, with about 120 participating banks. As in the previous years, the data will cover capital positions, profitability, financial assets, risk exposure amounts, sovereign exposures and asset quality. This year the EBA will provide additional pieces of information on the exposures under EBA compliant moratoria and public guarantee schemes, which will allow public to have more comprehensive assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the banking sector.

The EBA will start today the interaction with banks for supervisory reporting, data population and verification and expects to publish the results of the exercise at the beginning of December, together with the annual Risk Assessment Report (RAR).

Note to the editors

The EBA has been conducting annual transparency exercises at the EU-wide level since 2011. The transparency exercise is part of the EBA's ongoing efforts to foster transparency and market discipline in the EU financial market, and complements banks' own Pillar 3 disclosures, as laid down in the EU Capital Requirements Directive (CRD). Along with the dataset, the EBA also provides a wide range of interactive tools that allow users to compare and visualise data across time and at a country and a bank-by-bank level.