Article 144
Competent authorities' assessment of an application to use an IRB Approach
1.
The competent authority shall grant permission pursuant to Article 143 for an institution to use the IRB Approach, including to use own estimates of LGD and conversion factors, only if the competent authority is satisfied that requirements laid down in this Chapter are met, in particular those laid down in Section 6, and that the systems of the institution for the management and rating of credit risk exposures are sound and implemented with integrity and, in particular, that the institution has demonstrated to the satisfaction of the competent authority that the following standards are met:
(a)
the institution's rating systems provide for a meaningful assessment of obligor and transaction characteristics, a meaningful differentiation of risk and accurate and consistent quantitative estimates of risk;
(b)
internal ratings and default and loss estimates used in the calculation of own funds requirements and associated systems and processes play an essential role in the risk management and decision-making process, and in the credit approval, internal capital allocation and corporate governance functions of the institution;
(c)
the institution has a credit risk control unit responsible for its rating systems that is appropriately independent and free from undue influence;
(d)
the institution collects and stores all relevant data to provide effective support to its credit risk measurement and management process;
(e)
the institution documents its rating systems and the rationale for their design and validates its rating systems;
(f)
the institution has validated each rating system and each internal models approach for equity exposures during an appropriate time period prior to the permission to use this rating system or internal models approach to equity exposures, has assessed during this time period whether the rating system or internal models approaches for equity exposures are suited to the range of application of the rating system or internal models approach for equity exposures, and has made necessary changes to these rating systems or internal models approaches for equity exposures following from its assessment;
(g)
the institution has calculated under the IRB Approach the own funds requirements resulting from its risk parameters estimates and is able to submit the reporting as required by Article 430;
(h)
the institution has assigned and continues with assigning each exposure in the range of application of a rating system to a rating grade or pool of this rating system; the institution has assigned and continues with assigning each exposure in the range of application of an approach for equity exposures to this internal models approach.
The requirements to use an IRB Approach, including own estimates of LGD and conversion factors, apply also where an institution has implemented a rating system, or model used within a rating system, that it has purchased from a third-party vendor.
2.
EBA shall develop draft regulatory technical standards to specify the assessment methodology competent authorities are to follow when assessing the compliance of an institution with the requirements to use the IRB Approach.
EBA shall submit those draft regulatory technical standards to the Commission by 10 July 2026.
Power is delegated to the Commission to supplement this Regulation by adopting the regulatory technical standards referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph in accordance with Articles 10 to 14 of Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010.