Brussels, 29/08/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission says that the main burden of contributions to bank resolutions funds will not have to be borne by small banks.
Bank contributions to national bank resolution funds and the eurozone resolution fund (SRF) will depend on their assets (not including their own capital or deposits covered by a savings guarantee scheme).
In a column in newspaper La Libre Belgique on Thursday 28 August, Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier said that, based on the data available to the Commission, the options on the table list more than half of banks as small and therefore less risky; these banks therefore deserve special treatment to reduce their average contributions by at least 50% of the amount they would have paid by simply calculating a rate proportionate to their size.
Barnier was responding to statements by the joint leader of the Greens/EFA Group at the European Parliament, Philippe Lamberts of Belgium, that small banks would pay more than the big banks to the resolution funds, calculated as a proportion of their size.
Barnier said that most banks would pay no more than a few tens of thousands of euro into the resolution fund and the riskiest banks would have to pay a risk premium, which would mean that their contributions were of a different order to those of the small banks.
In September, the Commission will unveil two items of draft legislation, delegated acts, laying down the details of now banks are to contribute to the resolution funds, based on technical work that was completed in July (see EUROPE 11128), with the aim of having the new rules adopted by the end of the year. (MB)