The EBA Publishes Its Q2 2025 Dashboard On The Minimum Requirement For Own Funds And Eligible Liabilities

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published its semi-annual dashboard on the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL), which updates the information on the state of resolution planning and on the resources that banks are using to meet the requirements.

The dashboard presents aggregated statistical information for 304 banks earmarked for resolution across the European Union (EU), based on data reported by resolution authorities and banks, covering both decisions and resources.

As of 30 June 2025, the average external MREL binding requirement including the combined buffer requirement (CBR) stood at 28.9% of risk weighted assets (RWA) for global systemically important institutions (GSIIs), 28.5% for Top-Tier/fished banks and 24.3% for other banks. The average subordination requirement stood at 21.5% of RWAs for GSIIs and 22% for Top-Tier/fished banks.

Banks meet the requirements mainly through own funds instruments (19.8% of RWA for GSIIs, 21.6% for Top-Tier/fished banks and 20.8% for other banks). In terms of eligible liabilities, GSIIs and Top-Tier/fished banks mostly rely on senior non-preferred debt (8.2% of RWAs for GSIIs and 7.7% for Top-Tier/fished banks), while for other banks senior unsecured debt assumes higher relevance (5.8% of RWAs).

MREL instruments set to become ineligible by June 2026 due to their residual maturity falling below one year amounted to EUR 221 billion, representing 16% of total eligible instruments other than own funds for GSIIs, 20% for Top-Tier/fished banks and 21% for other banks (more details on MREL roll over needs are covered in the EBA Risk Assessment Report).

Bail-in remains the preferred resolution strategy in terms of RWAs (94%), whereas in terms of the number of decisions, bail-in (52%) and transfer (48%) strategies remain broadly balanced. This reflects the tendency to favour transfer strategies for smaller banks, while bail-in remains the preferred option for larger institutions.

Background

The EBA is mandated by the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) to monitor the setting of MREL by authorities and the build-up of related resources by institutions.

MREL is the requirement that ensures that relevant EU institutions have sufficient loss absorbing capacity to support the execution of the preferred resolution strategy in case of failure.

The BRRD set 1 January 2024 as a deadline to meet MREL requirements except for those banks that recently changed resolution strategy, or those eligible for an extension in accordance with Article 45m of the BRRD.

Top-Tier banks are resolution entities that are part of a resolution group the total assets of which exceed EUR 100 billion at resolution group level (Article 45c(5) of the BRRD). Fished banks are resolution entities that are part of a resolution group the total assets of which are lower than EUR 100 billion and which the resolution authority has assessed as reasonably likely to pose a systemic risk in the event of its failure (Article 45c(6) of the BRRD).

Further details are provided in the EBA report on supervisory convergence.