23 December 2014

EBA published final Guidelines on disclosure requirements for the EU banking sector

These Guidelines provide for a common framework that promotes consistency and enhances transparency on the assessments of materiality, proprietary or confidential nature of information, as well as the frequency of disclosures. They have been finalised following a three-month consultation period that ended in September 2014. The new disclosure framework will improve market discipline and confidence, while remaining flexible enough to take into account the differences in business models of the various institutions across the EU.

More specifically, these Guidelines cover the process that institutions should follow and the criteria they should consider when assessing the use of any waiver of disclosure requirements related to materiality or to the proprietary or confidential nature of disclosures, as well as the frequency of their disclosure. These Guidelines also indicate what institutions should provide if such a disclosure waiver is used, as well as the key information that they should consider if they choose to disclose information more frequently than on an annual basis. This set of information to be disclosed was determined taking into account institutions' practices as well as the users' needs in terms of regulatory information.

The assessment of regulatory disclosures carried out by the EBA since 2009 has in fact shown that the concepts of materiality, proprietary information and confidentiality are implemented differently by institutions across the EU. While these differences may reflect normal divergences among institutions, meaningful and consistent information across the single market reinforces the confidence of stakeholders and market discipline in the EU banking sector. Similarly, a common set of more frequent information across institutions will enhance the consistency and comparability of interim regulatory information available to users.

These Guidelines are in line with the work done at the international level to review regulatory disclosures by institutions. As for materiality, confidentiality and proprietary information, these Guidelines provide additional guidance compared to the work done at the international level.

These Guidelines will apply six months after publication of the Guidelines in the official languages of the EU.

Press release

Guidelines on materiality, proprietary and confidentiality and on disclosure

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