If applied in a strict sense, the guidelines could lead to identify as shadow banking a number of activities which may also occur in “non financial” companies, especially for the purpose of liquidity management. Furthermore, we think that the definition of “shadow banking entities” is too broad, namely by associating it to “bank-like activities” on the basis of services such as “portfolio management” and “advice” (Annex 1 para. 11 CRDIV). These services are not specific banking activities, as they are mainly performed by asset managers. It also needs to be clarified that financial holdings are not to be classified as shadow banks, since they are not involved in maturity and liquidity transformation (normally holdings in entities are financed by credit from the mother company). We believe that separate aggregate and individual limits on shadow banks under Pillar II would not be appropriate, due to the heterogeneity of the shadow banking sector. Finally, while we do welcome EBA’s effort in building up a methodology especially designed for shadow banking activities, we deem it as highly important to streamline this methodology with already existing regulatory regime.
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