Notification of changes in banks’ capital requirements from year-end 2020

As stated in an 11 December 2019 press release, the Ministry of Finance will adopt amendments to banks’ capital requirements effective from year-end 2020. In accordance with the CRR/CRD IV framework, the Ministry has today notified relevant EU/EEA authorities of the upcoming changes. The notifications have been sent to the Standing Committee of the EFTA States, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), the European Banking Authority (EBA), the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA), and the European Commission. As mentioned in the 11 December 2019 press release, the Ministry has also notified the identification of DNB and Kommunalbanken as domestic systemically important institutions, and the application of O-SII buffer requirements of 2 and 1 per cent, respectively.

The new requirements will formally be adopted after the notification process with the EU/EEA authorities has been completed, which is expected to take approximately one month. The Ministry will then request the ESRB to issue a recommendation to other EU/EEA states to reciprocate the systemic risk buffer requirement and the risk weight floors, so that these measures may also apply for foreign banks’ activities in Norway.

More:

• Notification of intended use of a systemic risk buffer (PDF)
• Notification of intended use of article 458 – risk weight floors CRE (PDF)
• Notification of intended use of article 458 – risk weight floors RRE (PDF)
• Notification of intended use of article 131 – other systemically important institutions (PDF)
• Revised draft regulation (in Norwegian only) (PDF)
• Memo of 11 December 2019 from the Ministry of Finance on the systemic risk buffer requirement (PDF)
• Press release of 11 December from the Ministry of Finance