Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilShow full title

Article 416 Reporting on liquid assets

1. Institutions shall report the following as liquid assets unless excluded by paragraph 2 and only if the liquid assets fulfil the conditions in paragraph 3:

(a) cash and exposures to central banks to the extent that these exposures can be withdrawn at any time in times of stress. As regards deposits held with central banks, the competent authority and the central bank shall aim at reaching a common understanding regarding the extent to which minimum reserves can be withdrawn in times of stress;

(b) other transferable assets that are of extremely high liquidity and credit quality;

(c) transferable assets representing claims on or guaranteed by:

(i)

the central government of a Member State, a region with fiscal autonomy to raise and collect taxes, or of a third country in the domestic currency of the central or regional government, if the institution incurs a liquidity risk in that Member State or third country that it covers by holding those liquid assets;

(ii)

central banks and non-central government public sector entities in the domestic currency of the central bank and the public sector entity;

(iii)

the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the Commission and multilateral development banks;

(iv)

the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism;

(d) transferable assets that are of high liquidity and credit quality;

(e) standby credit facilities granted by central banks within the scope of monetary policy to the extent that these facilities are not collateralised by liquid assets and excluding emergency liquidity assistance;

(f) if the credit institution belongs to a network in accordance with legal or statutory provisions, the legal or statutory minimum deposits with the central credit institution and other statutory or contractually available liquid funding from the central credit institution or institutions that are members of the network referred to in Article 113(7), or eligible for the waiver provided in Article 10, to the extent that this funding is not collateralised by liquid assets.

Pending specification of a uniform definition in accordance with Article 460 of high and extremely high liquidity and credit quality, institutions shall identify themselves in a given currency transferable assets that are respectively of high or extremely high liquidity and credit quality. Pending specification of a uniform definition, competent authorities may, taking into account the criteria listed in Article 509(3), (4) and (5) provide general guidance that institutions shall follow in identifying assets of high and extremely high liquidity and credit quality. In the absence of such guidance, institutions shall use transparent and objective criteria to this end, including some or all of the criteria listed in Article 509(3), (4) and (5).

2. The following shall not be considered liquid assets:

(a) assets that are issued by a credit institution unless they fulfil one of the following conditions:

(i)

they are bonds eligible for the treatment set out in Article 129(4) or (5) or asset backed instruments if demonstrated to be of the highest credit quality as established by EBA pursuant to the criteria in Article 509 (3), (4) and (5);

(ii)

they are bonds as referred to in Article 52(4) of Directive 2009/65/EC other than those referred to in point (i) of this point;

(iii)

the credit institution has been set up by a Member State central or regional government and that government has an obligation to protect the economic basis of the institution and maintain its viability throughout its lifetime; or the asset is explicitly guaranteed by that government; or at least 90 % of the loans granted by the institution are directly or indirectly guaranteed by that government and the asset is predominantly used to fund promotional loans granted on a non-competitive, not for profit basis in order to promote that government's public policy objectives;

(b) assets that are provided as collateral to the institution under reverse repo and securities financing transactions and that are held by the institution only as a credit risk mitigant and that are not legally and contractually available for use by the institution;

(c) assets issued by any of the following:

(i)

an investment firm;

(ii)

an insurance undertaking;

(iii)

a financial holding company;

(iv)

a mixed financial holding company;

(v)

any other entity that performs one or more of the activities listed in Annex I to Directive 2013/36/EU as its main business.

3. In accordance with paragraph 1, institutions shall report assets that fulfil the following conditions as liquid assets:

(a) they are unencumbered or stand available within collateral pools to be used for the obtaining of additional funding under committed but not yet funded credit lines available to the institution;

(b) they are not issued by the institution itself or its parent or subsidiary institutions or another subsidiary of its parent institutions or parent financial holding company;

(c) their price is generally agreed upon by markets participants and can easily be observed in the market, or their price can be determined by a formula that is easy to calculate based on publicly available inputs and does not depend on strong assumptions as is typically the case for structured or exotic products;

(d) they are eligible collateral for standard liquidity operations of a central bank in a Member State or if the liquid assets are held to meet liquidity outflows in the currency of a third country, of the central bank of that third country;

(e) they are listed on a recognised exchange or they are tradable on active outright sale or via a simple repurchase agreement on approved repurchase markets. These criteria shall be assessed separately for each market.

The conditions referred to in points (c), (d) and (e) of the first subparagraph shall not apply to the assets referred to in point (e) of paragraph 1.

The condition referred to in point (d) of the first subparagraph shall not apply in the case of liquid assets held to meet liquidity outflows in a currency in which there is an extremely narrow definition of central bank eligibility. In the case of liquid assets denominated in currencies of third countries, this exception shall apply and only apply if the competent authorities of the third country apply the same or an equivalent exception.

4. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraphs 1, 2 and 3, pending the specification of a binding liquidity requirement in accordance with Article 460 and in accordance with the second subparagraph of paragraph 1 of this Article, institutions shall report on:

(a) other non-central bank eligible but tradable assets such as equities and gold based on transparent and objective criteria, including some or all of the criteria listed in Article 509(3), (4) and (5);

(b) other central bank eligible and tradable assets such as asset backed instruments of the highest credit quality as established by EBA pursuant to the criteria in Article 509(3), (4) and (5);

(c) other central bank eligible but non-tradable assets such as credit claims as established by EBA pursuant to the criteria in Article 509(3), (4) and (5).

5. EBA shall develop draft implementing technical standards listing the currencies which meet the conditions referred to in the third subparagraph of paragraph 3.

EBA shall submit those draft implementing technical standards to the Commission by 31 March 2014.

Power is conferred on the Commission to adopt the implementing technical standards referred to in the first subparagraph in accordance with Article 15 of Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010.

Before the entry into force of the technical standards referred to in the third subparagraph, institutions may continue to apply the treatment set out in the second subparagraph of paragraph 3, where the competent authorities have applied that treatment before 1 January 2014.

6. Shares or units in CIUs may be treated as liquid assets up to an absolute amount of EUR 500 million in the portfolio of liquid assets of each institution provided that the requirements in Article 132(3) are met and that the CIU, apart from derivatives to mitigate interest rate or credit or currency risk, only invests in liquid assets as referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article.

The use or potential use by a CIU of derivative instruments to hedge risks of permitted investments shall not prevent that CIU from being eligible. Where the value of the shares or units of the CIU is not regularly marked to market by the third parties referred to in points (a) and (b) of Article 418(4) and the competent authority is not satisfied that an institution has developed robust methodologies and processes for such valuation as referred to in the first sentence of Article 418(4), shares or units in that CIU shall not be treated as liquid assets.

7. Where a liquid asset ceases to be eligible in the stock of liquid assets, an institution may nevertheless continue to consider it a liquid asset for an additional period of 30 calendar days. Where a liquid asset in a CIU ceases to be eligible for the treatment set out in paragraph 6, the shares or units in the CIU may nevertheless be considered a liquid asset for an additional period of 30 days provided that those assets do not exceed 10 % of the CIU's overall assets.