This is particularly relevant for the euro area, where banks play and crucial role in providing financing to the real economy, most notably to SMEs. Conversely, financial imbalances can be a genuine threat to price stability, in addition to being extremely costly from a macroeconomic perspective.
As of date, out of 23 banks, 20 have made presentations at the Bank on their IFRS 9 implementation plans. The remaining banks are scheduled to make presentations shortly. It is observed from the information submitted by banks that subsidiaries of the international banks were, as expected, better prepared than others to implement IFRS9 given the technical expertise available at Group level.