Adjustment of EU's banking prudential rules to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic

25-05-2020 - 10:47
With two major pillars cemented to secure banks and protect taxpayers from footing the bill of bank failures, will MEPs agree on the third and final one?
Banking union final pillar: building a fund to keep savings secure © European Parliament

On 18 May 2020, from 17:00 to 17:45, the ECON Committee held an Exchange of Views on the Commission proposal on targeted amendments to the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR). The objective of these amendments to the EU prudential framework for banks is to further facilitate bank lending in order to mitigate the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Proposed adjustments cover various issues including adapting the timeline of the application of international accounting standards on banks' capital, treating more favourably public guarantees granted during this crisis, postponing the date of application of the leverage ratio buffer and modifying the way of excluding certain exposures from the calculation of the leverage ratio. In addition, certain application dates in the CRR are brought forward, such as for the provision on treatment of certain software assets and for the SME- and Infrastructure- supporting factors.

The proposed measures are designed to complement and support the measures taken by European and national supervisory authorities.