Government & open data
Europese Bankautoriteit (EBA)
The European Banking Authority (EBA) builds the single rulebook for banks, payment institutions and investment firms in the EU. It drafts technical standards, adopts guidelines and recommendations, issues opinions and reports, answers questions in the Single Rulebook Q&A and maintains European registers of authorised institutions. DORA and MiCAR have added supervisory tasks around ICT service providers and crypto-assets. For financial-law work the EBA matters mainly because it shows how supervisors read a rule, long before a court does.
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What this source does not give you
The EBA does not publish law in force. Only the text in the Official Journal of the EU is authentic; of its own Interactive Single Rulebook the EBA states that it 'is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect'. Q&A answers, in the EBA's words, have 'no binding force in law', and draft RTS and ITS only become binding once the European Commission adopts them.
Legal domains for which LEO consults this source
Dutch legal domains; each link opens the domain page on leo.prudai.com.
Frequently asked questions
- Is an EBA guideline the same thing as legislation?
- No. A guideline falls under the comply-or-explain mechanism of Article 16 of the EBA Regulation: once the guideline is published in all official EU languages, national competent authorities have two months to report whether they comply or intend to comply, or to explain why not. The EBA then publishes a table showing the compliance status per authority. Competent authorities and financial institutions are expected to make every effort to comply, but a guideline is not a regulation and is not directly applicable law.
- What is the status of an answer in the Single Rulebook Q&A?
- The EBA is explicit about this: answers to Q&As have no binding force in law, and unlike guidelines they are not subject to a comply-or-explain procedure. The EBA and national competent authorities do monitor how the answers are applied in practice, because consistent application is the goal. Any natural or legal person may submit a question; since May 2021 an account is required. The EBA prioritises questions that affect a broad range of stakeholders.
- When does an EBA technical standard actually become binding?
- What the EBA publishes are drafts: draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) and draft implementing technical standards (ITS). They only become binding once the European Commission adopts them as a delegated or implementing act and the text appears in the Official Journal of the EU. The text can still change between the EBA draft and the adopted act, and there is almost always a gap in time. So cite the adopted act, not the EBA draft, when the binding rule is what matters.
- Which subjects does the EBA actually cover?
- The remit is broader than prudential banking supervision alone. The Q&A and the policy work cover the capital requirements directive and regulation, deposit guarantee schemes, bank recovery and resolution, investment firms, payment services, consumer credit, anti-money laundering, and the digital files DORA and MiCAR. Insurance is not included; that sits with EIOPA, and securities and markets supervision with ESMA.
- Can I use the EBA to check whether an institution is authorised?
- Partly. The EBA publishes a register of credit institutions authorised in the EU and a register of payment and electronic money institutions, plus links to national registers of credit intermediaries. Those registers are compiled solely from data supplied by national competent authorities. If in doubt, or where current status matters, the national register of the supervisor in the member state concerned prevails.