#BankingUnion - Agreement on measures to prevent accumulation of non-performing loans

Today's (18 December) political agreement is an important step to further reduce risks in the EU banking sector and strengthen its resilience, as highlighted in last week's Euro Summit conclusions. Together with the latest encouraging data on risk reduction and the recent political agreement on the banking package, this contributes to a swift completion of the Banking Union.

The agreed measures will ensure that banks set aside funds to cover the risks associated with loans issued in the future that may become non-performing. This will prevent the accumulation of non-performing exposures on banks' balance sheets and will ultimately enable banks to perform their indispensable role in financing the economy and supporting growth.

Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis (pictured) said: “We have been working intensely over the past years to reduce risks and strengthen the resilience of the European banking sector. Today's agreement will ensure that banks will have fewer NPLs on their balance sheets, which should increase their solidity and allow them to finance our businesses. I am counting on the European Parliament and the Council to swiftly agree on the outstanding proposals on the development of secondary markets for NPLs and facilitating debt recovery.”

This measure is part of a set of actions presented by the Commission in March 2018 to tackle non-performing loans in the Union. It builds on ongoing efforts by member states, supervisors, credit institutions towards a steady decrease in the number of NPLs across the Union.

Background

On 14 March 2018 the Commission proposed a package of measures to address non-performing loans in the EU banking sector. That package followed up on the Action Plan on reducing non-performing loans (NPLs), agreed by Europe's finance ministers in July 2017. In addition to today's measure, the package contained proposals to further develop secondary markets for NPLs and to enable an accelerated out-of-court enforcement of loans secured by collateral, as well as a technical blueprint for how to set up a national asset management companies.