After eight years of existence, the Single Resolution Board (SRB), the European authority in charge of resolving failing banking groups within the euro area banking union, is preparing to draw up a new strategic plan for the period 2024-2028, its new chairman, Dominique Laboureix, announced on Wednesday 1 March.
“I want to see how the SRB could function and deliver better”, Mr Laboureix told the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. According to him, the authority will now have to ensure that the resolution plans, which the major European banks falling within its remit have drawn up, “can be put into practice effectively”. This will include testing to ensure that the resolution plans work in realistic simulations as well as on-site inspections.
Mr Laboureix also mentioned several issues that have an impact on a bank’s ability to be resolved, including: - changes in funding conditions that impact on the issuance of MREL assets; - the forthcoming inter-institutional negotiations on the introduction in the EU of the ‘Basel III’ agreement which will “automatically” result in an increase in MREL asset requirements (see EUROPE 13106/19); - the forthcoming CMDI proposal on strengthening the banking crisis management framework, which was due to be presented on Wednesday 8 March, has been postponed by a few weeks.
On this point, Mr Laboureix asked for the support of MEPs. While the Eurogroup is calling for the scope of a bank resolution to be widened in the forthcoming proposal (see EUROPE 12974/10), he warned that this cannot happen without sufficient access to finance, saying that national deposit guarantee schemes, together with the SRB, can play a role in this.
Finally, the chairman of the European authority indicated that climate risk will be taken into account in the activities of the SRB. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)