On 19 February 2021, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a final report containing draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) on the determination of indirect exposures to underlying clients of derivative and credit derivative contracts under Article 390(9) of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR).

Article 390(5) of the CRR, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2019/876, requires institutions to add to the total exposures to a client the exposures arising from derivative contracts listed in Annex II of the CRR and credit derivative contracts, where the contract was not directly entered into with that client but the underlying debt or equity instrument was issued by that client. Article 390(9) of the CRR mandates the EBA “to specify how to determine the exposures arising from derivative contracts listed in Annex II and credit derivative contracts, where the contract was not directly entered into with a client but the underlying debt or equity instrument was issued by that client for their inclusion into the exposures to the client”.

The draft RTS propose a methodology for the calculation of exposures under Part four of the CRR for different categories of derivative contracts and credit derivative contracts with a single underlying debt or equity instrument, namely: options on debt and equity instruments, credit derivative contracts, and other derivatives having as underlying a debt or equity instrument. Only derivative and credit derivative contracts where the underlying of those instruments entails a default risk of the underlying reference names should be relevant for the calculation of the indirect exposures set out in the draft RTS. In addition, the draft RTS provide a separate methodology for the calculation of exposures stemming from contracts with multiple underlying reference names. In each case, a general methodology as well as a fallback approach is provided.

The draft RTS will be submitted to the European Commission for adoption. Following the submission, the RTS will be subject to scrutiny by the European Parliament and the Council before being published in the Official Journal of the European Union.