The EU Commission’s proposed ‘single-stack’ approach for Basel III finalisation would harm European banks

ESBG also calls for a proportionate implementation of the Basel III framework in the EU banking system to ensure that Europe’s diversified banking sector continues to foster economic growth.

BRUSSELS, 27 October 2021 – The European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) calls on the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to reconsider the output floor implementation on a ‘single-stack’ approach included in the European Commission’s proposal for the finalisation of the Basel III standards in the EU, announced today.

The ‘single-stack’ approach would mean applying the output floor to EU-specific capital requirements, on top of internationally agreed ones. ESBG calls for the use of the ‘backstop approach’, meaning applying the floor only to internationally agreed capital requirements. The ‘backstop approach’ would help preserve and strengthen the EU’s diverse banking system. Otherwise, the ability of Europe’s diversified banking sector to provide finance to the real economy and foster economic growth could be hampered.

“ESBG and its members believe that the Co-legislators should implement the Basel III framework adapting it to the specificities of the European banking market, where needed. This includes an application of the output floor that does not exceed what is explicitly laid down in the agreement on the finalisation of Basel III”, said Johanna Orth, Chair of ESBG’s Task Force on Basel.

The package of reforms to finalise the Basel III framework is designed for internationally active banks. Therefore, when implemented within the EU regulatory framework the EU special features should be considered, including those which are already enshrined in the banking regulation. In particular, the so-called SME supporting factor should be retained, as it provides the right incentive to stimulate real economic growth.

“The implementation of the Basel standards within the EU regulatory framework should reflect the proportionality principle, taking into consideration the risk nature, scale and complexity of the activities of European credit institutions”, said ESBG Managing Director, Peter Simon.

This would allow financial institutions to carry out their activities under a non-detrimental regulatory framework which strengthens the European banking sector – the backbone of the EU’s ‘real economy’. A disproportionate regulatory weight also would negatively impact banks, which would be overburdened with regulatory requirements that could even push resources away from customer service.

The EU banking sector’s diversity ensures that a full range of services is offered to customers at competitive prices, in particular by banks that focus on SMEs, households and local communities.

In this context, ESBG is looking forward to bringing the voice of its members to the upcoming legislative process. We believe that close cooperation among all stakeholders will be indispensable for the successful implementation of the finalised Basel III standards. We encourage the EU decision-makers to make full use of the discretions envisaged in the Basel III text, including those on operational risk, which will be crucial for continuous and solid credit provisions to the real economy after the implementation phase.

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TCB digitalizes savings groups to serve low-income women and youth

Scale2Save Campaign

Micro savings, maximum impact.

On the occasion of World Savings Day 2021, Tanzania Commercial Bank Plc (TCB), a WSBI member and learning partner of its programme for financial inclusion, Scale2Save, shared the experience of working with savings groups in rural areas. TCB developed the digital product M-KOBA to address five main challenges savings groups face. Now, TCB is taking M-KOBA further by targeting Village Savings and Loans Associations.

The development of M-KOBA

Tanzania Commercial Bank Plc (TCB) previously called TPB Bank Plc has always championed financial inclusion by providing services and products to serve the population at the bottom of the pyramid.

TBD conducted a three-year project (2018-2020) with USD 1 million provided by the Mastercard Foundation for the Savings at the Frontier (SatF) programme (Digitizing Informal Saving Mechanisms) and overseen by Oxford Policy Management (OPM). The goal was to bring on board 250,000 customers by 2020 of whom 20,000 would be purely rural. TCB launched the project in 15 locations, all in rural areas. The project led to the development of a pure digital group saving product called M-KOBA.

Launched in January 2019, M-KOBA is a mobile based product meant to facilitate group saving and provides solutions to five challenges that many formal and informal savings groups in Tanzania currently face. These are the challenges and the way M-KOBA addressed them:

  1. Security: Banking through this mobile account, the security of funds of customers is high, compared to the traditional saving mechanisms they normally use.
  2. Transparency: The whole process starting from customer registration to fund transfer (depositing) is transparent in the sense that all group members are involved.
  3. Convenience: The M-KOBA product is very easy for customers to understand and use. With M-Koba, individual members can contribute, apply for a loan and vote through their mobile phones, without physically convening in one place.
  4. Cost effectiveness: All customers transactions via M-KOBA are free of charge except for balance checks which are available for a small fee.
  5. Accessibility: M-KOBA is accessible anytime and anywhere, through the customer’s mobile phone.

Taking it further

To extend the project further, in October 2020, TCB entered into a partnership with Plan International Tanzania (Plan).

Plan is a child centered organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. Plan has been working in five thematic areas: Child protection, Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health and Nutrition (MNCH&N), Equal access to basic education, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Youth Economic Empowerment (YEE).

Plan’s YEE programs have been supporting vulnerable youth, especially young women and their families to improve livelihoods. This through provision of market relevant skills, support formation of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) and by facilitating linkage to private sector economic opportunities. VSLAs are informal, have simple record keeping, and members have full ownership and control. This methodology enables VSLAs to provide basic financial services to people in remote areas that lack infrastructure. The group members are 80% women and their main economic activity is agriculture. However, VSLAs face some limitations in offering financial services to its members, including:

  1. The safety of the money is not guaranteed, as VSLA save their money in metal boxes at home.
  2. At the initial parts of a cycle, the group has little money, which makes it difficult to meet its members’ credit needs.
  3. At times, when the loan demand is low, the group has excess liquidity and would rather save these excess funds in a bank account, where the money is safe and can earn some interest instead of lying idle.
  4. Since the loans from the group are based on member’s savings, the group is unable to provide larger loans. Also, the tenure of the loans is short, which is not appropriate for investing in income generating activities which have a longer pay-back period.

In order to address these limitations faced by the VSLAs, Plan and TCB entered into a partnership, whereby TCB would provide 2 products:

  1. M-KOBA, a digital form of saving money, accessing loans and sharing earnings to VSLA members. M-KOBA provides security of the VSLAs’ money, increase transparency and simplicity for members to contribute through mobile agency banking M-Pesa. M-KOBA digitalizes the VSLA processes and increases safety by using bank or M-Pesa savings accounts.
  2. Group savings products and potentially/eventually other bank products and services to the VSLAs formed i.e. Group loans and Group Life insurance.

Photos: ​Between August and October 2021 in Isanzu, Nyang’ingi, Sangabuye and Laela villages, saving group representatives met with TCB and Plan team to be trained on how to use M-KOBA, group loans application processes and life insurance.

Scale2Save


Bank financing for SMEs must be protected in Basel III finalization

The European Parliament (EP) should revise the measures that would eventually limit bank financing for ’unrated companies in the European Commission (EC)’s proposal for the finalisation of Basel III standards, said yesterday MEP Markus Ferber, Coordinator for the EPP Group at the EP’s Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON).

At a panel discussion organised by the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG), the parliamentarian said that most SMEs are likely to be ‘unrated companies’ and do not have the resources to get external rating, in contrast to large companies.

“I really want to safeguard that SMEs have access to financing and I’m not very convinced that Commission’s proposal on the unrated corporates is the solution”, he said to the agreement of most of his fellow speakers at the panel discussion ‘The impact of Basel III implementation on the EU economy’.

“We hear the concern about all those corporate clients of the banks who don’t have an external rating” said Johanna Orth, Head of Group Regulatory Affairs at Swedbank and Chair of the ESBG Task Force on Basel IV, who moderated the discussion. The Commission’s solution of a preferential risk weight for unrated companies during a transitional period ending in 2032 is “highly appreciated but still has an end date”, she stressed.

ESBG’s over 800 members are savings and retail banks who have SMEs as some of their main clients and have an important role as a motor of the EU’s real economy.

The EC’s DG FISMA Head of Banking Regulation and Supervision, Almoro Rubin de Cervin, had kindly given a brief presentation of the EC’s proposal announced at the end of October.

One of the key issues for the EU’s financial sector moving forward will be “to advance with the banking union”, said MEP Jonas Fernandez, EP’s ECON Coordinator for the S&D Group.

CaixaBank’s Head of Public Affairs, Christian Eduardo Castro, considered the EC’s Basel finalisation proposal “well-balanced and realistic” but called for some revisions, including on equity investments and disclosure requirements regarding operational risk.

ESBG Managing Director, Peter Simon, closed the event, the first one organised in ‘hybrid’ mode. “This type of dialogue is important to enhance the cooperation between all stakeholders to ensure proper and well-balanced implementation of the final Basel III standards”, he said.