You are here: 

FMA and OeNB have defined their joint priorities for banking supervision for 2021.

Release Date: |
Categories:

Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) will prioritise their supervision of banks in 2021 in the areas of resilience and stability, governance, digitalisation, and green finance/sustainable finance:
Resilience and Stability: The resilience and stability of the Austrian banking market should be further strengthened – while also applying proportionality in a manner that is adequate to address risks – by means of suitable early warning measures and transparent communication. As a result of the severe economic slump, a significant increase in the number of corporate insolvencies in the coming year is expected, resulting in higher credit risk costs for the banking sector. The focus in the supervisory dialogue with banks will therefore be on addressing this issue both quickly and transparently.
Governance: institutions’ governance structure should be further enhanced by means of closer cooperation with the supervisory board and with key function holders.
Digitalisation: COVID-19 has further accelerated the pace of digitalisation. There is a particular focus for banking supervision on the impact of digitalisation on business models and ensuring that suitable precautions are taken by banks to handle cybersecurity risks.
Green Finance/Sustainable Finance: an important contribution is being made towards creating a methodological basis for analysing the impact of climate risks and initial steps taken towards integrating this issue into the supervisory process by being involved from an early stage in the development of a European green finance agenda for supervision. For this purpose, a plan should also be drawn up for a climate stress test.
The objectives that have been presented are to be considered in conjunction with the supervisory priorities for 2021 of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in terms of their content. In 2021, the FMA and OeNB will also continue to monitoring the development and implementation of new regulatory issues. In addition there is also a focus on evaluating the “lessons learnt” from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Experience that has been obtained during the pandemic will be integrated in to normal operations. This relates to decentralised or virtual working procedures as well as expanding digital communications platforms for facilitating the exchanging of information with supervised institutions. The joint priorities for banking supervision are defined and communicated annually for the following year.

Journalists may address further enquiries to:

Annemarie Bauer (FMA)
Tel.: +43/(0)1/24959-6007

Christian Gutlederer (OeNB)
Tel.: +43/(0)1/404 20-6900