Single Rulebook Q&A

Stakeholders can submit questions on the practical application or implementation of the banking, payment services, AML/CFT and other legislation that falls within the EBA’s remit. This includes the associated delegated and implementing acts, RTS, ITS, guidelines and recommendations.  

  • Directive 2013/36/EU on access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms (the Capital Requirements Directive or CRD);
  • Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 (the Capital Requirements Regulation or CRR);
  • Directive 2014/49/EU on deposit guarantee schemes (Directive on deposit guarantee schemes orDGSD)
  • Directive 2014/59/EU establishing a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms and amending Directive 82/891/EEC, and Directives 2001/24/EC, 2002/47/EC, 2004/25/EC, 2005/56/EC, 2007/36/EC, 2011/35/EU, 2012/30/EU and 2013/36/EU, and Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010 and (EU) No 648/2012 (Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive orBRRD);
  • Directive (EU) 2019/2034 on the prudential supervision of investment firms (the Investment Firms Directive or IFD);
  • Regulation (EU) 2019/2033 on the prudential supervision of investment firms (the Investment Firms Regulation or IFR);Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on payment services in the internal market, amending Directives 2002/65/EC, 2009/110/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010, and repealing Directive 2007/64/EC (Payment Services Directive 2 or PSD2);
  • Directive 2014/17/EU on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property and amending Directives 2008/48/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010 (Mortgage Credit Directive or MCD);
  • Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 down a general framework for securitisation and creating a specific framework for simple, transparent and standardised securitisation, and amending Directives 2009/65/EC, 2009/138/EC and 2011/61/EU and Regulations (EC) No 1060/2009 and (EU) No 648/2012 (Simple, transparent and standardised Securitisation Regulation or SecReg);
  • Directive 2008/48/EC on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Directive 87/102/EEC (Consumer Credit Directive or CCD);
  • Directive 2009/110/EC on the taking up, pursuit and prudential supervision of the business of electronic money institutions amending Directives 2005/60/EC and 2006/48/EC and repealing Directive 2000/46/EC (E-money Directive or EMD);
  • Directive 2014/92/EU on the comparability of fees related to payment accounts, payment account switching and access to payment accounts with basic features (Payment Account Directive or PAD);
  • Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012, and repealing Directive 2005/60/EC and Directive 2006/70/EC (Anti Money Laundering Directive or AMLD);
  • Regulation (EU) 2015/847 on information accompanying transfers of funds and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1781/2006 (Funds Transfer Regulation or FTR)
  • Regulation (EU) 2015/751 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2015 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions (Interchange Fee Regulation or IcFR);
  • Directive 2002/65/EC (concerning the distance marketing of consumer financial services and amending Directive 90/619/EEC and Directives 97/7/EC and 98/27/EC (Distance Market Directive or DMD) – relevant parts only;
  • Directive (EU) 2022/2556 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2022 amending Directives 2009/65/EC, 2009/138/EC, 2011/61/EU, 2013/36/EU, 2014/59/EU, 2014/65/EU, (EU) 2015/2366 and (EU) 2016/2341 as regards digital operational resilience for the financial sector (Digital Operational Resilience Directive orDORA Directive);
  • Regulation (EU) 2022/2554 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2022 on digital operational resilience for the financial sectorand amending Regulations (EC) No 1060/2009, (EU) No 648/2012, (EU) No 600/2014, (EU) No 909/2014 and (EU) 2016/1011 (Digital Operational Resilience Regulationor DORA Regulation);
  • Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on markets in crypto-assets, and amending Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010 and (EU) No 1095/2010 and Directives 2013/36/EU and (EU) 2019/1937 (MiCAR) – relevant parts only;
  • Regulation (EU) No 648/2012on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (European Market Infrastructure Regulation orEMIR) - only RTS 2016/2251;
  • Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 on improving securities settlement in the European Union and on central securities depositories and amending Directives 98/26/EC and 2014/65/EU and Regulation (EU) No 236/2012 (Regulation on central securities depositories orCSDR) - only RTS 2017/390.

NB: Unless otherwise specified in Q&As, references to the above legal acts are to be understood as referring to the version of the legal act applicable at the Q&A’s date of publication.

Questions on legal acts referred to under Article 1 (2) of the EBA’s founding Regulation or within the scope of the EBA’s powers that are not listed here can be submitted choosing the ‘Other’ option in the ‘Legal Act’ field of the ‘Submit a question’ page. 

       Important note to users:

The EBA only starts accepting questions on the application and implementation of the relevant technical standards once these are published in the Official Journal of the European Union. An exception is made for certain draft Implementing Technical Standards on Supervisory Reporting, in order to allow institutions and competent authorities to make the necessary preparations or changes to their reporting systems.

The Q&A process entails close and ongoing interaction between the EBA, the European Commission and competent authorities to ensure that the responses to the questions submitted remain consistent with the European legislative texts.

Any natural or legal person can use the Single Rulebook Q&A tool for submitting questions on the legislative acts referred to in Article 1(2) of the EBA’s founding Regulation and their associated Delegated and Implementing Acts, RTS, ITS, Guidelines, or Recommendations.

Questions should relate to the practical application or implementation of provisions of the relevant legislative act and/or associated delegated or implementing acts, RTS, ITS, guidelines, or recommendations. Questions that require the interpretation of these legal instruments will be forwarded to the European Commission who will prepare answers.

Article 16(b)(2) of the EBA’s founding regulation states that answers to Q&As have no binding force in law. Further, Q&As are not subject to a "comply or explain" process. However, their application is scrutinised by the EBA and competent authorities given their practical significance to achieve a level playing field.

In February 2022 the EBA adjusted its Single Rulebook Q&A process, including the admissibility criteria. The EBA aims to respond to Q&As within 9 months, focusing the process on answering those Q&As which raise material issues relevant for a broad set of stakeholders where additional EBA guidance or clarification would add real value. Where this period is unlikely to be met, the submitter will be informed and additional steps taken to ensure prompt finalisation.

As part of the adjustments, final answers will now be published on Friday mornings - except if this coincides with an EBA public holiday. In this instance, answers will be published on the preceding working day.

Users should take a note of the following points in particular (some of which reflect changes stemming from the EBA founding Regulation):

  • In accordance with Article 16b (3) of the EBA founding Regulation, all questions under review are to be published on the EBA’s website unless such publication is in conflict with the legitimate interest of those persons or would involve risks to the stability of the financial system.
  • Rejected questions are published for a period of at least 2 months, to facilitate illustrating the types of questions that are not suitable. Questions are rejected when requirements set out in theAdditional background and guidance for asking questionsare not met.
  • The Q&A pages are organised in a way that encourages users to use the 'Search for Q&As' function and to refer to the guidance mentioned above before submitting any questions.

Questions on CRD/CRR: currently the EBA is developing technical standards and guidelines under the recent amendments to Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 (CRR) and Directive 2013/36 (CRD) to implement the CRD6/CRR3 legislative package. The European Commission is also supporting Member States in the transposition of the revised CRR-CRD. The EBA and Commission encourage you to wait before submitting new questions and in particular for questions which may be answered by the outcome of this work. Questions in these areas may be rejected and, if accepted, may not be able to be answered within the nine month period within which the EBA and Commission aim to answer questions.

Q&As related to thesupervisory benchmarking exercises have been moved to thededicated handbook page. You can submit Q&As on this topichere. 

Q&As on legislation of relevance tomore than one ESA, so called "Joint Q&As" can be accessedhere.

InFebruary 2022 the EBA adjusted its Single Rulebook Q&A process to ensure that questions are answered within a reasonable time. The admissibility criteria have been adjusted to prioritise Q&As that: are relevant to a broad set of stakeholders; concern a material matter from a prudential, payments, consumer protection, resolution or other perspective within the EBA’s remit; and need EBA guidance or clarification.

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Please note: From 25.5.2021 you need a user account in order to submit a Q&A.

When followingSubmit a question, you will be asked to enter your login details, if you already have an account, or you can create one as ‘public user’.