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Disclaimer:

Q&As refer to the provisions in force on the day of their publication. The EBA does not systematically review published Q&As following the amendment of legislative acts. Users of the Q&A tool should therefore check the date of publication of the Q&A and whether the provisions referred to in the answer remain the same.

Please note that the Q&As related to the supervisory benchmarking exercises have been moved to the dedicated handbook page. You can submit Q&As on this topic here.

List of Q&A's

"Unexpected outflow" in the context of applying large exposure exemptions granted in Article 390(6)(c) CRR

Are the exposures created between service providers, which are caused by clients signing up to new products outside of business hours, an “unexpected outflow” in the context of applying the exemptions granted in Article 390(6)(c) of the Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 as amended by Regulation (EU) 2019/876 (CRR2)?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Interpreting the definitions of "client activity" and "unexpected" in modern financial services market in the context of CRR

Are “top ups” a “client activity” as defined in Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 (herein ‘CRR')? How “unexpected” should they be interpreted in the modern payments environment?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Applicability of the Guidelines of the Committee of European Banking Supervisors on Article 106(2)(c) and (d) of Directive 2006/48/EC (CRD)

Are the implementation guidelines on Article 106(2)(c) and (d) of Directive 2006/48/EC (CRD) of the Committee of European Banking Supervisors applicable for interpreting Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 as amended by Regulation (EU) 2019/876?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Large exposures – excluding exposures if fully deducted from own funds

Will Q&A 787 still apply when the amended large exposures rules in accordance with CRR2 are in force?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

CCP related transactions

Do bilateral exposures vis-à-vis a clearing member qualify as trade exposures, and therefore fall under the exemption of Article 400(1)(j)?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Large exposures regime for exposures treated as the exposures to institutions in accordance with Article 119(5) of CRR

Shall the exposure, that for the purpose of calculating risk weighted assets for credit risk is treated as the exposure to institution in accordance with Article 119(5) of CRR, should also be treated as the exposure to institution when calculating limits for large exposures in accordance with Article 395 of CRR?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Large Exposures treatment of Nostro Accounts used for correspondent banking

Do Nostro Accounts used for correspondent banking activities always meet the exclusion criteria specified under Article 390(6) CRR?To the extent that a low amount of exposure is always left in the same accounts, as a buffer to avoid going overdrawn as a result of the correspondent banking activity, would this be eligible for the exclusions as well? If yes, under which circumstances?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Partial Waiver of Article 6(1) CRR according to Article 7(3) CRR

Can a bank apply for a partial waiver of Article 6(1)  CRR as described in Article 7(3)?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Article 395 CRR – Shadow entities large exposure limits

If a bank invests through a vehicle, incorporated under the applicable Securitisation Law, with separate compartments per investor and where the paid out of each Note is segregated per portfolio of loans, may each Note be deemed a separate shadow entity?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: EBA/GL/2015/20 - Guidelines on limits on exposures to shadow banking entities which carry out banking activities outside a regulated framework under Article 395(2) of CRR

Exempting foreign currency - denominated required minimum reserves according to Article 493(7) CRR

How is the level of exposures to central bank, in the form of Euro-denominated required minimum reserves in non-Euro Member States, determined for the purposes of Article 493(7) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Large exposures - treatment of connected clients principle on exposures to other group entities outside prudential scope of consolidation

What treatment is envisaged in the context of connected clients for multiple exposures to multiple entities that are part of the same economic group, but are not included in the scope of prudential consolidation? Are these considered to be an exposure to the same (connected) client?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Recognition for large exposure purposes of a guarantee granted by the central government on an equity exposure

Can an equity exposure guaranteed by a central government be exempted from the large exposure framework or can only debt instruments be exempted? In particular, would such guarantees be compliant with the eligibility requirement set in Article 213(1)(b) CRR?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Connected Clients and Control Relationship

Is the relation between a company and its directors as they are indicated in the company’s structure (irrespective of their number and irrespective if they are executive or non-executive directors) an indicator of control? Would it thus lead to identify a "single risk" and therefore to the creation of a group of connected clients? ?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Exposure Value under the Equity method of accounting

What exposure value should be used for Large Exposure purposes in situations where there is a difference between the accounting value used for IFRS accounting purposes and the value used for FinRep regulatory purposes?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Can multiple exemptions be applied to an exposure at the same time?

This question relates to the application of multiple exemptions from article 400 (2) CRR in specific cases. As stated in article 400 (2) CRR „competent authorities may fully or partially exempt exposures“. Which exemption should be applied to an exposure if it falls under the incidence of more than one of the partial exemptions from article 400 (2) CRR? We would like to give an example related to this question. In Germany, a partial exemption of 75% may be applied according to article 400 (2) c) CRR for exposures, excluding participations or other kinds of holdings, incurred by an institution to its parent undertaking, to other subsidiaries of that parent undertaking or to its own subsidiaries, in so far as those undertakings are covered by the supervision on a consolidated basis to which the institution itself is subject, in accordance with this Regulation, Directive 2002/87/EC or with equivalent standards in force in a third country. Furthermore, according to article 400 (2) i) CRR an exemption of 50% may be applied to medium/low risk off-balance sheet undrawn credit facilities referred to in Annex I.

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Level 1 assets and Large Exposures exemptions

Please can you confirm that debt securities with a 0% risk weight under Part Three, Title II, Chapter 2 that are reported as level 1 assets in accordance with Article 10 point 1(e)(ii) of the Delegated Act specifying the LCR should also be exempted from the Large Exposure Limits defined in Article 395(1) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 under the exemptions in Article 400 point 2(d)(e)?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

“Direct” control

In the example stipulated in the background section, does Central Government A - even if it does not hold the voting rights over company B1 directly by itself - exercise "direct" control over B1 within the meaning of Article 4 (1) (39) last subparagraph CRR?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Treatment of stock futures under Article 390(3) and Article 327(1)

Does a short position on an equity future contract net off against a long position in its underlying equity, considering that the underlying security and the equity are identical, deliverable, quoted on an official exchange and cleared through the corresponding CCP?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Large AFS exposures and accounting for OCI unrealised gains

The question is regarding the ‘’exposures’’ definition (article 389 of CRR IV) and how to deal with assets on the Available For Sale (AFS) accounting portfolio (and hence valued at fair value through Other Comprehensive Income (OCI)) during the transitional period to a ‘’fully-loaded CRR IV’’. More specifically: If the 2014 transitional arrangements include 0% (exclude 100%) of OCI-unrealised gains from CET1 capital (and thus from ‘’eligible capital’’), would it be admissible for the sake of ‘’numerator-denominator consistency’’ to deduct those OCI-unrealised gains from the ‘’exposure’’ value, under the large exposures framework? Considering the above, what would be the approach for the following year (2015) with a transitional arrangement of 20% inclusion (80% exclusion) of OCI-unrealised gains? What would the treatment for OCI-unrealised losses be? How would this issue be dealt with in the capital requirements framework under the standardised approach for credit risk?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable

Definition of "institution" for large exposure purposes

Should EC implementing decision on the equivalence of the supervisory and regulatory requirements of certain third countries and territories for the purposes of the treatment of exposures according to Regulation (EC) No. 575/2013 be used to determine equivalence for LE purposes?

  • Legal act: Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR)
  • COM Delegated or Implementing Acts/RTS/ITS/GLs: Not applicable