On July 7, 2015, the European Banking Authority published an Opinion on the establishment of a European framework for qualifying securitizations. The Opinion is addressed to the European Commission, which issued a call for advice in January 2014 to identify the most appropriate characteristics in relation to categories of underlying assets and certain structural and transparency features for "high-quality" transactions. The EBA was asked to assess whether it would be appropriate to grant preferential treatment to high-quality securitizations, so as to boost EU securitization markets. The Opinion makes five recommendations, namely to: (i) conduct an all-inclusive review of the regulatory framework for securitizations and other investment products such as covered bonds and whole loan portfolios; (ii) create a framework for qualifying securitizations; (iii) establish criteria defining qualifying term securitizations; (iv) establish criteria defining qualifying asset-backed commercial paper securitizations; and (v) re-calibrate the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision 2014 securitization framework applicable to qualifying securitization positions. The Opinion states that these recommendations on the implementation of a qualifying securitization framework should be reconsidered subject to any progress made by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and International Organization of Securities Commission on the definition of a simple transparent and comparable securitizations framework. An accompanying report on qualifying securitization was also published by the EBA and describes the analysis carried out in order to reach the recommendations.
The Opinion is available at: https://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/983359/EBA-Op-2015-14+Opinion+on+qualifying+securitisation.pdf .
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