General information
The Bank of Italy liaises with credit institutions operating in Italy for the purposes of their participation in the monetary policy operations of the Eurosystem. Credit institutions are eligible to act as monetary policy counterparties only when they satisfy the general criteria prescribed by Eurosystem regulations and meet administrative, technical and operational requirements. To qualify for participation in monetary policy operations, counterparties must be financially sound, both on an individual and consolidated basis.
The regulatory framework
Within the scope of the counterparty framework's common set of rules as laid out in Guideline (EU) 2015/510 of the European Central Bank, 19 December 2014, on the implementation of the Eurosystem monetary policy framework (ECB/2014/60), the Eurosystem may adopt prudential discretionary measures by means of which it suspends, excludes or limits access to operations to those counterparties that are in breach of the capital and liquidity requirements set out in the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR ‒ Regulation (EU) 575/2013) or have failed to transmit, in full or in part, the relevant data to the competent authorities.
Since 28 June 2021, when Guideline (EU) of the ECB of 6 May 2021 entered into force (amending Guideline (EU) 2015/510 of the ECB), the Eurosystem's criteria for assessing the financial soundness of its counterparties have comprised the leverage ratio, reflecting the inclusion of the leverage ratio in the Pillar 1 own-funds requirements laid out by CRR2 (Regulation (EU) 2019/876).
Therefore, the measures that apply within the Eurosystem to breaches affecting the common equity tier 1 capital ratio (CET1), tier 1 capital ratio (T1CR) and total capital ratio (TCR), as well as to incomplete or failed transmission of data, also extend to the leverage ratio requirement.
