THEAbi gives a “negative judgment” about EBA decisions (European banking authority), which yesterday asked European banks for a new capital strengthening. In particular, with the increase imposed on Italian institutions (15,4 billion in total) there are “risks concrete restrictions on credit to the economy".
"The exercise conducted by the EBA - continues the Italian Association - appears to be flawed by a non-homogeneous application of the criteria for determining risk-weighted assets among the different European jurisdictions". In presenting the results of the stress tests, "the EBA itself had to make it clear that the national authorities adopt different methods of calculating the so-called 'floors' when the bank uses internal rating models (IRB and AMA) and had to proceed to indicate for each bank which floor calculation option had been adopted".
According to the banking association, it is evident “that these differences can lead to the emergence of capital deficits that do not reflect a real exposure to risk, however forcing banks to carry out unnecessary recapitalizations with significant negative consequences. Furthermore, having adopted the mark to market criterion for government bonds in the absence of any signal regarding the solvency of the issuers, in addition to having caused anomalous volatility on the market for these bonds, appears wholly incongruous with respect to the difficult economic Europe is going through”.
Furthermore, “the timing of the exercise and the consequent recapitalizations are inopportune and in clear contrast to the shared opinion that the rules should not increase the cyclicality of the economy. At a time when all research centers report strong downward revisions of the growth prospects of the European economies - underlines Palazzo Altieri - the EBA imposes measures on the banks that can lead to a reduction in assets and a consequent contraction of the credit disbursed to the economy. From this point of view, it is surprising that the EBA exercise was not preceded by any impact assessment”. For these reasons, the ABI, "in addition to formally requesting that the exercise be thoroughly revised, reserves the right to verify the legitimacy of the same in each venue".
