Supervisory Disclosure Requirements of the NBB under Basel II
NOTICE: All information in this section is momentarily only available in English. Where references are made to documents published by the NBB, the content of those documents is mostly only available in French and Dutch.
The importance of supervisory transparency and accountability has been stressed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and by the new European legislation (namely the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) 2006/48/EC, and the Capital Adequacy Directive (CAD) 2006/49/EC. Article 144 of the CRD stipulates explicit disclosure requirements for national supervisory authorities.
To ensure uniformity and comparability of the disclosed information, the European Banking Authority (the former CEBS) developed a standardised web-based supervisory disclosure framework and published general guidelines on the implementation of the framework (CEBS Guidelines on Supervisory Disclosure).
The tables of information in this section will be identically implemented on homepages of the national competent authorities of the EU Member States starting January 1, 2007. The EBA website will thereby serve as a centralised electronic repository and will allow for quick and easy comparison of the relevant information. The websites of the national competent authorities will provide the exhaustive and detailed information required by the CRD. This two level approach shall increase the transparency and comparability of the data and information disclosed.
To comply with its supervisory disclosure requirements, the NBB implemented a special area within its website. In analogy with the provisions of Article 144 of the CRD, the content of the supervisory disclosure requirements has been divided into four sections:
- Rules and guidance:
- Texts of laws and regulations adopting the Basel II provisions within directive 2006/48/EC and directive 2006/49/EC in Belgium. The texts outline the basic legislative and regulatory framework for credit institutions and investment firms subject to supervision by the NBB.
- Administrative rules refer to documents that instruct supervised entities on how to satisfy minimum regulatory standards and are published in the form of circular letters in the area of prudential supervision.
- General guidance includes explicit disclosure requirements from the two Basel II directives and explanations by the NBB deemed necessary to set out how the rules should be applied by institutions. Additionally, such guidance will cover any other relevant information that the NBB wishes to release to enhance the understanding of the new capital adequacy framework and is published in the form of uniform letters.
- Disclosure on reporting includes information on the key aspects of the implementation of the consolidated financial reporting framework (FINREP), as well as the solvency reporting framework (COREP).
- FINREP AND COREP - Implementation questions (EBA website)
- Options and national discretions:
- The directives 2006/48/EC and 2006/49/EC contain a certain number of legal options and national discretions which may be used partly by the supervised institutions themselves and partly by the national supervisory authorities respectively.
- Supervisory review:
- This section covers the general criteria and methodologies used by the NBB in the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP), minimum requirements for institutions' own Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) and policies on supervisory measures with respect to specific circumstances or institutions.
- Statistical data:
- This section includes aggregate statistical data on key aspects of the implementation of Basel II in Belgium. The disclosed tables comprise information on the Belgian banking sector, credit risk, operational risk, market risk as well as limited information on supervisory actions and measures. In this section, the NBB may omit one or more items of information, if those items include information which is regarded as proprietary or confidential.