SRB publishes operational guidance for banks on resolvability self-assessment

Press releases

Thursday, 07 August 2025

The guidance is a crucial element of banks' resolvability assessments, representing a paradigm shift towards resolvability self-assessments and rigorous testing.
The document incorporates feedback garnered from a public consultation, notably the simplification of the template, which reduces the work imposed upon banks without compromising on resolvability.

The SRB publishes today its Operational Guidance for Banks on Resolvability Self-Assessment. This approach is a key part of the SRM Vision 2028 strategy, designed to ensure that European banks are equipped for the future and crisis-ready, based on a revised methodology encompassing lessons learnt from crisis cases, best practice and the testing of banks’ capabilities.

The guidance introduces a standardised self-assessment report designed to help banks to document their resolvability assessment in a consistent manner, promoting a level playing field, transparency and comparability across the sector.

The self-assessment takes the form of a structured questionnaire covering each of the seven resolvability dimensions specified in the Expectations for Banks. It outlines the capabilities that banks should have in place to effectively execute resolution measures during a crisis. The methodology will also reflect how well banks’ resolvability capabilities work in practice through their regular testing. Operational guidance on the testing framework, which complements the self-assessment approach, will be published later this year.

Following a public consultation held from December 3, 2024, to February 7, 2025, the SRB has carefully considered the industry's feedback and introduced substantial enhancements to the self-assessment framework, aimed at simplifying the process and alleviating the administrative burden on banks. These improvements include a 20% reduction in the number of resolvability capabilities, a transition to a reporting every two years, and the introduction of a less granular reporting structure, notably for testing activities.

The first self-assessment report under the format established by the new guidance should reflect the resolvability self-assessment as at 31 December 2025 and is expected to be submitted by banks by 31 January 2026 at the latest.

The self-assessment report may be subject to targeted amendments in light of the ongoing development of new policies and guidance.