The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published an interim report on the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL). Under the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (2014/59/EU) (BRRD) the EBA is required to submit a report to the European Commission on the implementation of MREL by October 31, 2016.  This report will assist the Commission in its work on a legislative proposal on the harmonized application of MREL as well as a legislative proposal to review MREL and implement the total loss absorbing capacity standard in the EU.

The EBA’s interim report is intended to provide input into the Commission’s deliberations ahead of the preparations of the EBA’s final report and contains a number of provisional recommendations. Preliminary quantitative findings on the financing capacity and needs of EU banking groups are also available in the interim report, although these are subject to several methodological caveats.  In the absence of MREL decisions for institutions to date, and given the limited information related to the resolution authorities’ MREL policy approach, the EBA was required to make assumptions on the likely scope and calibration of MREL.  These assumptions are by definition different from the actual levels of MREL which will ultimately be determined by resolution authorities in relation to each institution and group.

The interim report is available here.