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After Brexit the UK financial industry will lose access to the Single Market under the EU passport regime. To what extent can equivalence replace the passport after Brexit?

With an outstanding volume of about €2.1 trillion, covered bonds rank high among the main funding sources for EU banks. These specialised debt securities provide banks with attractive funding for the financing of mortgages and public authorities in many EU member states. Due to overcollateralisation, covered bonds are relatively cheap and have a longer maturity. In turn, they are also an appealing investment class for risk-averse investors (including other banks), as long as the collateral is of sufficient quality and the amount is large enough.

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9, issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) on 24 July 2014 and came into effect on 3 January 2018, addresses multiple aspects of accounting for financial instruments, namely classification and measurement, impairment of financial assets and general hedge accounting. The objective is to establish common and harmonised principles for the reporting of financial assets and financial liabilities.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, banks have accumulated about a trillion euro of non-performing loans (NPLs) in their balance sheets. The high levels of NPLs in countries such as Italy, Greece and Portugal constrain their banks’ lending abilities, which causes delays in the countries’ economic recovery.