Financial Conglomerates

Financial conglomerates are financial groups, which offer their services and products in various financial sectors (banking, investment services and insurance sectors). Special supervisory regulations consider the cross-sector significance of financial conglomerates to be able to effectively counteract the increasing interdependencies from both sectors that can lead to cross-sector effects in the event of an entity falling into financial difficulties.

Supplementary supervision has been introduced for credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms belonging to a financial conglomerate, that conduct a considerable amount of cross-sectoral business that exceeds certain thresholds.

  • Directive 2002/87/EC of 16 December 2002 on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate
  • Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2454 of 14 December 2022 laying down implementing technical standards for the application of Directive 2002/87/EC with regard to supervisory reporting of risk concentrations and intra-group transactions (Text with EEA) relevance)
  • Financial Conglomerates Act (FKG; Finanzkonglomerategesetz)
  • Financial Conglomerates Quarterly Reports Regulation (FK-QUAB-V; Finanzkonglomeratsquartalsberichts-Verordnung)

Until Directive 2002/87/EC was enacted, the law of the European Community contained regulations for the supervision of individual credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms and the supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms that were part of a group of banks or investment firms or an insurance group, i.e. a group with homogeneous financial activities (cf. Recital 1 of the original version of Directive 2002/87/EC ). Financial groups, that provided their services and products in different financial sectors (financial conglomerates), were not subject to any kind of group-wide supervision.

Based on the increasing mutual interconnectedness, which can lead to cross-sector effects in the event of financial difficulties arising, the Financial Conglomerates Directive was adopted in December 2002.

It introduced supplementary supervision for credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms belonging to a financial conglomerate that conducted a considerable amount of cross-sectoral business exceeding specific thresholds.
In Austria, the Directive was transposed by the Financial Conglomerates Act (FKG; Finanzkonglomerategesetz).

To assist the supervisory authorities in the evaluation of risks entered into by a conglomerate, and to simplify coordinated supervisory practices throughout the European Union, reporting forms were introduced by the directly applicable Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2454. Using these forms, supervised entities and mixed financial holding companies are required to report significant intra-group transactions and significant risk concentrations in a uniform and standardised manner.

Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2454 contains

  • harmonised templates for the reporting of credit risk concentrations, and
  • harmonised templates for intra-group transactions

In transposing the Financial Conglomerates Directive (Directive 2002/87/EC ) into national law, Austria decided to enact a separate legal act for the supervision of financial conglomerates to ensure better handling and clarity, the Financial Conglomerates Act (FKG – Finanzkonglomerategesetz) published in Federal Law Gazette I no. 70/2004.

  • Significant measures in the Financial Conglomerates Act: Defining of information obligations for supervised and unsupervised entities within a financial conglomerate
  • Definition of homogenous solvency requirements on the level of the financial conglomerate
  • Adaptation of existing supervisory acts to avoid supervisory arbitrage
  • Competence of the Financial Market Authority for supplementary supervision

The Regulation of the Financial Market Authority (FMA) on quarterly reports of financial conglomerates can be found on the FMA website (in German only) under the following link: Finanzkonglomeratsquartalsberichts-Verordnung

Reporting to the FMA

Below, you can find information for drawing up supervisory reporting for financial conglomerates to the FMA.

The following document contains a summary of the reporting deadlines:

Meldefristen im Kalenderjahr 2024 für Finanzkonglomerate (Format: pdf, Size: 488,5 KB, Language: German)

The Incoming Platform is a centralised Internet-based platform, which permits the electronic transmission of documents to a single location. As a result the time for submission as well as the operative burden for all concerned is kept to a minimum. Certain submissions under the FMA Incoming Platform Regulation (FMA-IPV; FMA-Incoming-Plattformverordnung) are required to be submitted via the Incoming Platform.

You can reach the Incoming Platform (in German only) via the following link.

To ensure legally effective submission, please consult this Kundmachung zur rechtswirksamen Einbringung von Anbringen (Format: pdf, Size: 102,6 KB, Language: German) (in German only).

You can reach the Interface Description (in German only) via the following link.

Reporting for financial conglomerates must be submitted to the FMA through the Incoming Platform.

The entity subject to supplementary supervision is the entity that is subject to reporting obligations and submits the European financial conglomerate reporting to the FMA via the Incoming Platform.

EIOPA publishes taxonomy documents on its website. More detailed information about reporting can be found under FICOD Data Point Models and XBRL Taxonomies.

When submitting the reporting file, it is essential that the naming convention (PDF Download) is observed. You can find an overview of the previous taxonomies used in relation to individual reporting items here (PDF Download).