Banks: Consob opens the consultation with the market on the information to be delivered to the public with reference to the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) (Press release January 2nd, 2019)
Consob opened the consultation with the financial market, focused on the subject of the information to be disclosed by the banks to the public as a result of the assessment process on the adequacy of capital requirements, known as the SREP (Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process).
The consultation closes on January 31, 2019. Its aim is to collect industry feedback on the redefinition of the information set to be made public in conjunction with the implementation of the SREP, i.e. the recurring tests managed by the Prudential Supervisory Authorities on the credit sector ( the Single Supervision Mechanism, SSM, of the European Central Bank for the larger institutions and the Bank of Italy for the smaller ones).
This initiative is aimed primarily at drawing attention to the appropriate identification of privileged "price sensitive" information which, during the course of the Srep, will have to be disclosed to the market through a press release or, alternatively, will have to be subject to the delayed communication procedure to the public. In addition, Consob provides some indications regarding the processing of such information in the context of both information prospectuses and periodic financial information.
At the end of the consultation, Consob will adopt a Recommendation, which will revoke and replace the previous Communication adopted on this subject on November 26, 2015 (No. 0090883).
The proposed Recommendation is directed both to banks to be compliant to the Mar regulations (listed subjects and/or other subjects having financial instruments traded on multilateral or organized trading systems) and to other banks, issuers of financial instruments widely circulated among the public, and therefore obliged as well to be compliant with the transparency requirements due to the public, as required by the Consolidated Law on Finance (Testo unico della finanza, TUF, article 116, paragraph 1-bis).
In the lack of explicit European regulatory provisions regarding the information transparency criteria to be adopted during the SREP process, Consob intends to draw the banks' attention to the need to assess the privileged nature that might be taken - throughout the course of the SREP - by the information communicated to the institutions themselves by the Prudential Supervisory Authorities regarding the capital ratios, including also the information contained in the draft SREP letter.
The information must also be disclosed with reference to the prospectuses relating to the public offering and / or to the admission to trading on regulated markets of financial instruments issued by the banks. In the case of an already approved prospectus, the banks will evaluate the opportunity of additional information, should the information resulting from the Srep be configured as a "significant new event" (article 94, paragraph 7 of the T.u.f.).
On the other hand, in reference to periodic financial information (annual financial statements, half-year reports, additional periodic financial information), banks will have to evaluate the results of the Srep process with relation to of the international accounting standards (IAS / IFRS) and to the guidelines of transparency on the SREPs provided both by the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the ECB, in order to ensure their full compliance.
Press release in PDF format
