European Central Bank Publishes Final First Chapter of Its Guide to Internal Models

The European Central Bank has published the final first chapter of its guide to internal models. The Capital Requirements Regulation requires the ECB to assess and grant permission for banks directly supervised by the ECB to use internal models for credit risk, counterparty credit risk and market risk. The ECB's guide sets out how the ECB intends to approach the assessment of whether a firm meets the necessary requirements for the permission to be granted. This chapter is on general topics, comprising overarching principles for internal models, implementation of the internal ratings-based approach, internal model governance, internal validation and audit, model use, change management and third-party involvement. The ECB recently consulted on model-specific chapters, including for credit, market and counterparty credit risks.

The ECB notes that the guide may need to be amended if the European Commission adopts a different version of the European Banking Authority's final Draft Regulatory Technical Standards on assessment methodology for the IRB approach.

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