Recital 21

(21) Competent authorities should have an explicit power to require, on a case-by-case basis, that third-country branches apply for authorisation in accordance with Title III, Chapter 1 of Directive 2013/36/EU, at a minimum where those branches engage in activities with clients or counterparties in other Member States in breach of the internal market rules, where they pose a significant risk to the financial stability of the Union or of the Member State where they are established or where the aggregate amount of the assets of all third-country branches in the Union which belong to the same third-country group is equal to or greater than EUR 40 billion or the amount of the third-country branch’s assets in the Member State where it is established is equal to or greater than EUR 10 billion. Moreover, competent authorities should be required to assess whether third-country branches have systemic importance where the aggregate amount of the assets of all third-country branches in the Union which belong to the same third-country group is equal to or greater than EUR 40 billion. All third-country branches that belong to the same third-country group established in one Member State or across the Union should be subject to such assessment by their respective competent authorities. That assessment should examine, in accordance with specific criteria, whether those branches pose an analogous level of risk to the financial stability of the Union or its Member States as institutions defined as ‘systemically important’ under Directive 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 575/2013. Where competent authorities conclude that the third-country branches are systemically important, they should impose requirements on those branches that are appropriate to mitigate risks to financial stability. For those purposes, competent authorities should be able to require third-country branches to apply for authorisation as subsidiary institutions under Directive 2013/36/EU in order to continue conducting banking activities in the Member State or across the Union. Moreover, competent authorities should be able to impose other requirements, in particular an obligation to restructure third-country branches’ assets or activities in the Union so that those branches cease to have systemic importance, or a requirement to comply with additional capital, liquidity, reporting or disclosure requirements, where that would be sufficient to address the risks to financial stability. Competent authorities should have the possibility not to impose any of those requirements on third-country branches assessed as having systemic importance, in which case they should provide a reasoned notification to EBA and the competent authorities of the Member States where the relevant third-country group has established other third-country branches or subsidiary institutions. In order to consider the Union-wide implications, competent authorities which decide to exercise their power to require the authorisation as a subsidiary institution should, in advance, consult EBA and the competent authorities concerned.

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Source: EUR-Lex CELLAR · retrieved 2026-09-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.