Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1620 of 13 July 2018 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 to supplement Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and the Council with regard to liquidity coverage requirement for credit institutions (Text with EEA relevance.)

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to 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 (1), and in particular Article 460 thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 (2) should be amended in order to improve alignment with international standards and facilitate more efficient liquidity management by credit institutions.

(2) In particular, in order to take adequate account of activities carried out by credit institutions active outside the Union, any requirement for a minimum issue size applying to liquid assets held by a subsidiary undertaking in a third country should be waived, so that such assets can be recognised for consolidation purposes. Otherwise, the parent institution could suffer a shortfall in liquid assets at consolidated level since the liquidity requirement arising from a subsidiary in a third country would be included in the consolidated liquidity requirement while the assets held by that subsidiary to fulfil its liquidity requirement in the third country would be excluded from the consolidated liquidity requirement. However, the assets of the subsidiary undertaking in a third country should only be recognised up to the level of the stressed net liquidity outflows incurred in the same currency as the currency in which the assets are denominated and arising from that particular subsidiary. Moreover, as for any other third-country assets, the assets should only be recognised if they qualify as liquid assets under the national law of the third country in question.

(3) It is recognised that central banks can provide liquidity in their own currency and that the credit rating of central banks is less relevant for liquidity purposes than for solvency purposes. As a result, and in order to align the rules in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 more closely with the international standard and to provide a level playing field for internationally active credit institutions, reserves held by a third country subsidiary or branch of a Union credit institution in the central bank of a third country which is not assigned a credit assessment of credit quality step 1 by a nominated external credit assessment institution should be eligible as level 1 liquid assets where certain conditions are met. Specifically, those reserves should be eligible where the credit institution is permitted to withdraw them at any time during stress periods and, in addition, the conditions for their withdrawal are specified in an agreement between the supervisory authority of the third country and the central bank in which the reserves are held or in the applicable rules of the third country. However, those reserves should only be capable of being recognised as level 1 assets to cover stressed net liquidity outflows incurred in the same currency as that in which the reserves are denominated.

(4) It is appropriate to take into account Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3). That Regulation contains criteria to determine whether a securitisation can be designated as a simple, transparent and standardised (‘STS’) securitisation. Since those criteria ensure that STS securitisations are of high quality, they should also be used to determine which securitisations are to count as high quality liquid assets for the calculation of the liquidity coverage requirement. Securitisations should therefore be eligible as level 2B assets for the purposes of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 if they fulfil all the requirements laid down in Regulation (EU) 2017/2402, in addition to those criteria already specified in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 that are specific to their liquidity characteristics.

(5) The implementation of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 should not hinder the effective transmission of monetary policy to the economy. Transactions with the ECB or the central bank of a Member State can be expected to be rolled-over under conditions of severe stress. It should therefore be possible for competent authorities to waive the unwind mechanism for the calculation of the liquidity buffer in the case of secured transactions with the ECB or the central bank of a Member State where the transactions involve high quality liquid assets on at least one leg of each transaction and are due to mature within the next 30 calendar days. However, before granting the waiver, competent authorities should be required to consult with the central bank that is the counterparty to the transaction, and also with the ECB if that central bank is an Eurosystem central bank. In addition, the waiver should be subject to appropriate safeguards in order to avoid possible regulatory arbitrage opportunities or adverse incentives for credit institutions. Finally, to align the Union rules more closely with the international standard set by the BCBS, collateral received through derivatives transactions should be removed from the unwind mechanism.

(6) In addition, the treatment of outflow and inflow rates for repurchase agreements (‘repos’), reverse repurchase agreements (‘reverse repos’) and collateral swaps should be fully aligned with the approach in the international standard for the liquidity coverage ratio set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (‘BCBS’). Specifically, the cash outflows calculation should be directly linked to the prolongation rate of the transaction (aligned with the haircut on the collateral provided applied to the cash liability, as in the BCBS standard) rather than to the liquidity value of the underlying collateral.

(7) Given divergent interpretations that have emerged, it is important to clarify various provisions of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61, in particular regarding the fulfilment of the liquidity coverage requirement; the eligibility in the buffer of assets included in a pool available to obtain funding under uncommitted lines operated by the central bank, of CIUs and of deposits and other funding in cooperative networks and institutional protection schemes; the calculation of additional liquidity outflows for other products and services; the granting of preferential treatment to intragroup credit and liquidity facilities; the treatment of short position; and the recognition of monies due from securities maturing in the next 30 calendar days,

(8) Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 should therefore be amended accordingly,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 is amended as follows:

(16) at the end of Article 26, the following paragraph is added: ‘Competent authorities shall inform the EBA which institutions benefit from the netting of outflows with interdependent inflows under this article. The EBA may request supporting documentation.’;

(21) the following Article 31a is inserted: ‘Article 31a Outflows from liabilities and commitments not covered by other provisions of this Chapter

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 30 April 2020.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 13 July 2018.

For the Commission The President Jean-Claude JUNCKER

(1) OJ L 176, 27.6.2013, p. 1.

(2) Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/61 of 10 October 2014 to supplement Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and the Council with regard to liquidity coverage requirement for Credit Institutions (OJ L 11, 17.1.2015, p. 1).

(3) Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2017 laying down a general framework for securitisation and creating a specific framework for simple, transparent and standardised securitisation, and amending Directives 2009/65/EC, 2009/138/EC and 2011/61/EU and Regulations (EC) No 1060/2009 and (EU) No 648/2012 (OJ L 347, 28.12.2017, p. 35).