The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) will in relation to banking supervision during 2020 prioritise the issues of digitalisation, further development of business models, governance and crisis resilience (including the sustainability of the granting of credit) towards credit institutions:
- Digitalisation and the associated IT risks are becoming increasingly significant. A priority for banking supervision on-site inspections during 2020 will therefore also be in reviewing IT risks, such as IT security risks and cybersecurity. Furthermore, IT risks will also be taken into account in the annual Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) and addressed in structured dialogue.
- New technical capabilities are leading to the further development of banks’ business models as well as new players entering the banking market. Banking supervision in Austria will therefore evaluate the impacts of adaptations to business models and will also take the results findings into account in the SREP process. In addition, close contact will also be maintained with the Austrian FinTech community.
- Strong governance – i.e. governance principles is important for ensuring an orderly and stable financial market. Banking supervision will therefore review the governance of credit institutions in 2020 – this measure is in particular intended to enhance internal control functions such as the internal audit function and the BWG compliance function. Furthermore, there will also be a focus on data governance, data quality and consistency in the data aggregation process. Workshops will be held in 2020 on further developing and improving governance in credit institutions.
- In order to strengthen the resilience of Austrian banks against crises, the FMA and OeNB will continue to monitor the consequent reduction of non-performing loans (NPLs), and to actively pursue the corresponding strategies for reducing NPLs; from a preventive angle, this will be pursued further in connection with the issue of the sustainable granting of credit. The credit institutions’ resolution plans will be reviewed with regard to impediments to resolution. The resilience as well as the adequacy of the capital base of Austrian banks will also be reviewed in 2020 by means of stress tests.
The objectives presented are to be considered in conjunction with the supervisory priorities for 2020 of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in terms of their content. In addition to the aforementioned objectives, the FMA and OeNB will continue in 2020 to actively accompanying the development and implementation of new regulatory issues, in this case in particular sustainable finance and the finalising of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s reform agenda.
The definition and communication of their joint priorities for supervision is one of the measures that the FMA and OeNB have taken during the current year to further optimise their cooperation.
Journalists may address further enquiries to:
Ms. Annemarie Bauer (FMA) Dr. Christian Gutlederer (OeNB)
Tel.: +43/(0)1/24959-6007 Tel.: +43/(0)1/404 20- 6900