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AI Summary of Article 138 General requirements

Institutions may nominate one or more External Credit Assessment Institutions (ECAIs) for determining risk weights for assets and off-balance sheet items and may revoke such nominations under specific conditions. Credit assessments must be used consistently and may only be solicited unless confirmed by the EBA as of equal quality when unsolicited.

Further, institutions are required to adhere to stipulated guidelines regarding risk weight assessments based on credit ratings. This includes the use of the highest risk weight when multiple assessments exist and restrictions on employing ECAI assessments that assume implicit government support, particularly concerning institutions not backed by government entities.

Version status: Amended | Document consolidation status: Updated to reflect all known changes
Version date: 1 January 2025 - onwards
Version 5 of 5

Article 138 General requirements

An institution may nominate one or more ECAIs to be used for the determination of risk weights to be assigned to assets and off-balance sheet items. An institution may revoke its nomination of an ECAI. An institution shall substantiate the revocation if there are concrete indications that the intention underlying the revocation is to reduce the capital adequacy requirements. Credit assessments shall not be used selectively. An institution shall use solicited credit assessments. However it may use unsolicited credit assessments if EBA has confirmed that unsolicited credit assessments of an ECAI do not differ in quality from solicited credit assessments of this ECAI. EBA shall refuse or revoke this confirmation in particular if the ECAI has used an unsolicited credit assessment to put pressure on the rated entity to place an order for a credit assessment or other services. In using credit assessment, institutions shall comply with the following requirements:

(a) an institution which decides to use the credit assessments produced by an ECAI for a certain class of items shall use those credit assessments consistently for all exposures belonging to that class;

(b) an institution which decides to use the credit assessments produced by an ECAI shall use them in a continuous and consistent way over time;