On July 3, 2015, the EBA published an Opinion on the European Commission's intention to amend draft Regulatory Technical Standards on derogations for currencies with constraints on the availability of liquid assets under the Capital Requirements Regulation. The CRR allows firms to apply derogations where a justified need for liquid assets exists owing to the Liquidity Coverage Requirement, and exceeds the availability of those liquid assets in certain currencies. Measures in the draft RTS were introduced to prevent the unnecessary use of derogations by firms, such as a general 8% haircut to be applied to foreign currency liquid assets, and a requirement that the value of the collateral posted at a central bank is subject to a haircut of at least 15%. The EBA states in its Opinion that it agrees with the Commission's suggestion to remove from the RTS the requirement for a haircut of at least 15%. The EBA also agrees with other amendments suggested by the Commission, such as providing more detail on what is considered to be an exceptional circumstance, conditions for derogations, and the process for notification of exceptional circumstances. The EBA has amended and resubmitted the draft RTS, and these are included in the Opinion.
The Opinion is available at: http://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/983359/EBA-Op-2015-13+Opinion+on+RTS+on+Derogations+for+Currencies+with+Constraints.pdf.
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