The Bank of Italy is issuing a fast track tender for a framework agreement for the acquisition of services to support the activities of the Asset Quality Review at national level. The review is part of the comprehensive assessment of banking groups that is being carried out ahead of the launch of the single supervisory mechanism by the European Central Bank.
The comprehensive assessment is the largest such exercise ever undertaken in terms of the number of banks involved, their overall size and geographical reach. The unprecedented scale of the exercise has made it necessary to adopt a system-wide approach to ensure consistency at European level. Amongst other things, the assessment envisages that national competent authorities will call on the services of private sector experts (consultants, auditors and/or others), and must be concluded by October 2014.
The support services provided for in the framework agreement will be supplied from about March to July 2014 and can also be conducted outside of Italy. The agreement will be concluded with a maximum of five economic operators satisfying specific requirements and the estimated value for its entire duration is €7 million. The economic operators cannot be awarded any specific tenders relative to banking groups that would place them in a situation of conflict of interest as specified in the tender rules and regulations.
The aims of the comprehensive assessment and the provisional list of banks involved can be consulted on the ECB's website: "Note - Comprehensive Assessment October 2013".
