Article 11
Level 2A assets
1.
Level 2A assets shall only include assets falling under one or more of the following categories and meeting in each case the eligibility criteria laid down herein:
(a)
assets representing claims on or guaranteed by regional governments, local authorities or public sector entities in a Member State, where exposures to them are assigned a risk weight of 20 % in accordance with Article 115(1) and (5) and Article 116(1), (2) and (3) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013, as applicable;
(b)
assets representing claims on or guaranteed by the central government or the central bank of a third country or by a regional government, local authority or public sector entity in a third country, provided that they are assigned a 20 % risk weight in accordance with Articles 114(2), 115 or 116 of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013, as applicable;
(c)
exposures in the form of high quality covered bonds, which shall comply with all of the following requirements:
(i)
they are covered bonds as referred to in Article 3, point 1, of Directive (EU) 2019/2162 or they are issued before 8 July 2022 and meet the requirements set out in Article 52(4) of Directive 2009/65/EC, as applicable on the date of their issue, which makes them eligible for preferential treatment as covered bonds until their maturity;
(ii)
the exposures to institutions in the cover pool meet the requirements set out in Article 129(1), point (c), and in Article 129(1a) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013;
(iv)
their issue size is at least EUR 250 million (or the equivalent amount in domestic currency);
(v)
the covered bonds are assigned a credit assessment by a nominated ECAI which is at least credit quality step 2 in accordance with Article 129(4) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013, the equivalent credit quality step in the event of a short term credit assessment or, in the absence of a credit assessment, they are assigned a 20 % risk weight in accordance with Article 129(5) of that Regulation;
(vi)
the cover pool meets at all times an asset coverage requirement of at least 7 % in excess of the amount required to meet the claims attaching to the covered bonds. However, where covered bonds with a credit quality step 1 credit assessment do not meet the minimum issue size for extremely high quality covered bonds in accordance with point (f)(iv) of Article 10(1) but meet the requirements for high quality covered bonds laid down in points (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv), they shall instead be subject to a minimum asset coverage requirement of 2 %;
(d)
exposures in the form of covered bonds issued by credit institutions in third countries, which shall comply with all of the following requirements:
(i)
they are covered bonds in accordance with the national law of the third country which must define them as debt securities issued by credit institutions, or by a wholly owned subsidiary of a credit institution which guarantees the issue, and secured by a cover pool of assets, in respect of which bondholders shall have direct recourse for the repayment of principal and interest on a priority basis in the event of the issuer's default;
(ii)
the issuer and the covered bonds are subject by the national law in the third country to special public supervision designed to protect bondholders and the supervisory and regulatory arrangements applied in the third country must be at least equivalent to those applied in the Union;
(iii)
the covered bonds are backed by a pool of assets of one or more of the types described in Article 129(1), points (b), (d), (f) and (g), of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013. Where the pool comprises loans secured by immovable property, the requirements set out in Article 6(2), Article 6(3), point (a), and in Article 6(5) of Directive (EU) 2019/2162 must be met;
(iv)
the exposures to institutions in the cover pool meet the requirements set out in Article 129(1), point (c), and in Article 129(1a) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013;
(v)
the credit institution investing in the covered bonds and the issuer meet the transparency requirement laid down in Article 14 of Directive (EU) 2019/2162;
(vi)
the covered bonds are assigned a credit assessment by a nominated ECAI which is at least credit quality step 1 in accordance with Article 129(4) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013, the equivalent credit quality step in the event of a short term credit assessment or, in the absence of a credit assessment, they are assigned a 10 % risk weight in accordance with Article 129(5) of that Regulation; and
(vii)
the cover pool meets at all times an asset coverage requirement of at least 7 % in excess of the amount required to meet the claims attaching to the covered bonds. However, where the issue size of the covered bonds is EUR 500 million (or the equivalent amount in domestic currency) or higher, they shall instead be subject to a minimum asset coverage requirement of 2 %;
(e)
corporate debt securities which meet all of the following requirements:
(i)
they are assigned a credit assessment by a nominated ECAI which is at least credit quality step 1 in accordance with Article 122 of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 or the equivalent credit quality step in the event of a short term credit assessment;
(ii)
the securities issue size is at least EUR 250 million (or the equivalent in domestic currency);
(iii)
the maximum time to maturity of the securities at the time of issuance is 10 years;
2.
The market value of each of the level 2A assets shall be subject to a haircut of at least 15 %.