The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today its annual EU-wide transparency exercise, as part of its efforts to monitor risks and vulnerabilities and to reinforce market discipline. As in the past, the exercise is exclusively based on supervisory reporting data, which will keep the burden for the banks to a minimum. Results are expected to be published at the beginning of December.

The EBA expects to release more than 1 million data points, on average more than 10,000 data points per bank, with about 120 participating banks. As in the previous years, the data will cover capital positions, profitability, financial assets, risk exposure amounts, sovereign exposures and asset quality.

The EBA has started today the interaction with the participating banks, which includes their verification of pre-populated templates and any data quality correction to be executed through the supervisory reporting channel. Results of the exercise are expected to be published at the beginning of December, together with the annual Risk Assessment Report (RAR).