(1)

The deferral of extraordinary ex post contributions, referred to in Article 104 of Directive 2014/59/EU, should be granted by the resolution authority upon an institution's request in order to facilitate the assessment by the resolution authority that that institution meets the conditions for the deferral set out in Article 104(3) of Directive 2014/59/EU. The concerned institution should provide any information deemed necessary by the resolution authority to conduct such assessment. The resolution authority should take into account all information available to the national competent authorities to avoid any duplication of notification requirements.

(2)

When assessing the impact of the payment of extraordinary ex post contributions on the solvency or liquidity of the institution, the resolution authority should analyse the impact of the payment on the institution's capital and liquidity position. The analysis should assume a loss on the institution's balance sheet equal to the amount payable at the point in time when it is due and make a projection of the institution's capital ratios following this loss for an appropriate time frame. Moreover, it should assume an outflow of funds equal to the amount payable at the point in time when it is due and should assess the liquidity risk.

(3)

Recovery and resolution plans require institutions and resolution authorities to be able to identify and ensure the continuance of critical functions of institutions or groups.

(4)

The continuity of critical functions of the institution under resolution is one of the main resolution objectives. It aims at safeguarding financial stability and the real economy and therefore plays a key role in the recovery and resolution planning process. Critical functions can include deposit taking, lending and loan services, payment, clearing, custody and settlement services, wholesale funding markets activities, and capital markets and investments activities.

(5)

Critical functions of an institution or group are set out in its recovery plan. The recovery plan should be assessed by the resolution authority and form the basis of the resolution plan. The resolution authority should conduct its own assessment of critical functions when establishing the resolution plan and should demonstrate how critical functions and core business lines could be legally and economically separated from other functions so as to ensure continuity upon the failure of the institution.

(6)

When assessing the resolvability of an institution, resolution authorities should take into account whether the chosen strategy ensures the continuity of critical functions, and whether the power to address or remove impediments to resolvability relates to critical functions. Similarly, in a bail-in scenario, liabilities could be exempted from the scope of the bail-in where the exclusion is strictly necessary and proportionate to achieve the continuity of critical functions. Critical functions also become relevant in the operation of a bridge bank tool since a bridge bank institution should maintain critical functions.

(7)

Critical functions should be identified in a two-step procedure: first, the institutions perform a self-assessment when establishing their recovery plans. Secondly, the resolution authorities critically review the recovery plans of the individual institutions to ensure consistency and coherence in the approaches used by banks. Since the resolution authorities benefit from the overarching view as to which functions are essential to maintain financial stability as a whole, they should take the final decision as regards the designation of critical functions for the purpose of resolution planning and execution.

(8)

Critical services should be the underlying operations, activities and services performed for one (dedicated services) or more business units or legal entities (shared services) within the group which are needed to provide one or more critical functions. Critical services can be performed by one or more entities (such as a separate legal entity or an internal unit) within the group (internal service) or be outsourced to an external provider (external service). A service should be considered critical where its disruption can present a serious impediment to, or completely prevent, the performance of critical functions as they are intrinsically linked to the critical functions that an institution performs for third parties. Their identification follows the identification of a critical function.

(9)

Institutions and resolution authorities should also identify the critical services in the recovery and resolution plans. To the extent that critical services are outsourced to third parties, the resolution authority should be able to limit its assessment to that which is necessary to verify whether the institution has an appropriate business continuity plan in place.

(10)

The determination of a service as critical should enable institutions to ensure the continued availability of those services by providing them through entities or units that are resilient in a failure, or establishing appropriate arrangements where they are supplied by an external provider.

(11)

The main difference between a critical function and a core business line lies in the impact of the activities concerned. While critical functions should be assessed from a perspective of their importance for the functioning of the real economy and financial markets and therefore for financial stability as a whole, core business lines should be assessed on the basis of the importance for the institution itself such as the level of their contributions to revenues and profits of the institution.

(12)

Insofar as the recovery plan should contain a detailed description of the processes for determining the value and marketability of the core business lines, operations and assets of the institution, also the resolution plan should contain a mapping of the institution's critical operations and core business lines and a demonstration of how critical functions and core business lines could be legally and economically separated from other functions so as to ensure continuity upon the failure of the institution. In resolution, the continuity of critical functions and core business lines may justify an exemption of certain liabilities from the application of the bail-in tool and may also justify its transference to a bridge bank.

(13)

While core business lines are often linked to how much they contribute to the financial results of the institution, such an approach may not completely capture all core business lines because an institution may provide a service which is not directly profitable (or may even generate losses) but creates significant franchise value and is therefore important to its business as a whole,