On 8 November 2023, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published three consultations on draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) to specify the liquidity requirements of the reserve of assets, the highly liquid financial instruments in the reserve of assets and the minimum content of the liquidity management policy and procedures of relevant issuers of tokens. The EBA is also consulting on draft guidelines to establish the common reference parameters of the stress test scenarios to be included in their liquidity stress testing. The consultations form part of the prudential package under the Regulation on Markets in crypto assets (MiCA), in particular Articles 36(4), 38(5), 45(7)(b) and 45(8) MiCA.

In the RTS on liquidity requirements of the reserve of assets the EBA proposes minimum percentage rates of the reserve of assets with a maturity of no longer than between 1 and 5 working days. Furthermore, the EBA proposes overall techniques for liquidity management of the reserve of assets. Moreover, the draft RTS establish the specific minimum amount of deposits with credit institutions to be held by issuers in each official currency referenced.

In the RTS on highly liquid financial instruments in the reserve of assets, the EBA specifies financial instruments that can be considered highly liquid and bearing minimal market risk, credit risk and concentration risk, where the reserve of assets may be invested in.

The EBA proposes draft RTS specifying the liquidity management policy and procedures. These ensure that the relevant issuers of tokens properly assess and monitor their liquidity needs and that their reserve assets have a resilient liquidity profile to meet any redemption of the asset-referenced tokens that can be requested at any time by their holders.

The draft EBA guidelines on liquidity stress testing, lay out the risks identified by the EBA to be covered in the liquidity stress testing. They also pinpoint the methodology identifying the common reference parameters of the stress test scenarios to be included in the liquidity stress testing to be applied.

The deadline for feedback to these consultations is 8 February 2024.