On May 12, 2016, the European Banking Authority, European Securities and Markets Authority and European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (known as the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities) published an Opinion on the European Commission's proposed amendments to the ESA's final draft Implementing Technical Standards on the mapping of credit assessments to the risk weights of External Credit Assessment Institutions under the Capital Requirements Regulation and Solvency II Directive. The ESA's submitted their final draft ITS to the European Commission in November 2015. The Commission notified the ESAs on March 30, 2016 that it intended to adopt the ITS with amendments by relaxing the ESA's approach to the mapping of ECAIs. The ESA's do not agree with the proposed amendments for several reasons including the fact that the Commission's approach favors promoting competition over financial stability risk concerns.

The Opinion is available at: http://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/1359456/ESAs+2016+41+%28Joint +Opinion+on+EC+amend+ITS+ECAIs+Mapping+CRR%29.pdf.

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