The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published its latest report on the level of asset encumbrance across EU banking institutions.

Based on a comparison of the results of this report to an earlier EBA report published in 2015, the EBA finds that there is no indication of a significant increase in the level of asset encumbrance over the last year. The report also notes that the main source of asset encumbrance continue to be repos, covered bonds issued and central bank funding, even though repos followed a steady decrease in importance over the terms. The highest values are still mostly reported by countries severely affected by the sovereign debt crisis. In particular, the levels of asset encumbrance reported by Greek banks increased significantly with respect to year-end 2014, which is mainly explained by an increased use of central bank funding during 2015.

View EBA finds no significant increase in asset encumbrance in 2015, 4 July 2016