EBA publishes 2027 Work Programme
EBA published its Work Programme for 2027, setting out its priorities and planned activities for the coming year. The EBA identifies three overarching objectives: improving efficiency, strengthening resilience and supporting transformation, with a particular focus on regulatory simplification, supervisory consistency and developments in digital finance.
The EBA plans to complete the bulk of its work on the 2024 EU banking package and simplify parts of the credit risk framework. It will also revise technical standards on prior permission for reducing own funds and eligible liabilities and complete joint guidelines on suitability assessments.
In the area of payment services, subject to the expected adoption of the revised Payment Services Directive and Payment Services Regulation (PSD3/PSR), the EBA plans to develop technical standards and guidelines covering, among other things, the safeguarding of customer funds, own funds requirements, exclusions from the payment services framework and strong customer authentication.
The EBA also plans to develop rules under the reformed crisis management and deposit insurance framework, including on early intervention, loss-absorbing resources and contributions by deposit guarantee schemes to resolution. Further work will address depositor information, client funds held in intermediary accounts, information exchange between deposit guarantee schemes and the investment of deposit guarantee scheme funds.
Supervisory convergence and consumer protection will remain key priorities. The EBA plans to introduce a risk-based supervisory convergence framework and monitor the implementation of the revised Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) guidelines, including their application to capital requirements, proportionality, governance and liquidity. It will also assess lenders’ compliance with creditworthiness assessment requirements under the revised Consumer Credit Directive and work with the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) on guidelines addressing de-risking.
The EBA will conduct the 2027 EU-wide stress test and plans to publish the results around summer 2027. The exercise will use significantly fewer data points than the 2025 exercise to reduce the reporting burden and will include an additional climate risk module covering transition risks and physical risks from river floods. The EBA will also prepare for an EU-wide crisis simulation exercise planned for 2028.
Digital finance and operational resilience will remain another area of focus. Under DORA, the EBA and the other European Supervisory Authorities will continue overseeing critical third-party ICT service providers, with particular attention to cybersecurity and risks related to advanced artificial intelligence models. The EBA will also assess the significance of asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens under MiCAR, expand initial margin model validation under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), and examine banks’ tokenised investment products and reliance on third-party AI systems.
Finally, the EBA plans to improve supervisory data coordination by establishing a public repository of data requests from authorities across the EU. Together with the ECB and national authorities, it will also work towards aligning reporting requirements for banking supervision, resolution and statistical purposes to reduce duplicate reporting by banks.
Recommendation: Banks, payment institutions, e-money institutions and crypto-asset issuers should monitor the EBA’s 2027 work programme and assess which planned initiatives may affect their activities. Relevant firms should also follow forthcoming consultations and consider anticipated regulatory, supervisory and reporting developments in their compliance planning.
