Austria Financial Market Authority reports Financial Market Stability Board recommends keeping the countercyclical capital buffer at 0% and maintaining O-SII buffers

Austria Financial Market Authority published an update from the Financial Market Stability Board’s 46th meeting, including a recommendation to keep the countercyclical capital buffer unchanged at 0% of domestic risk-weighted assets and to leave the list and buffer levels for other systemically important institutions unchanged. The countercyclical buffer assessment applied for the first time a new methodology developed by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. On commercial real estate financing, the Board noted that systemic risks continue to exist and that the implementation of CRR III has led to hardly any increase in the equity capital backing commercial real estate financing, following its earlier recommendation to set a sectoral systemic risk buffer for commercial real estate financing at 1% and to reassess the need for further increases once initial reporting data became available. The Board also revised its Rules of Procedure to reflect requirements of the new Freedom of Information Act and said it will expand its public disclosures to include meeting dates, Board members’ terms and meeting minutes alongside press releases and recommendations.