12 Jan 2017

BCBS Discussion Paper: Regulatory treatment of accounting provisions

EBF advisor: Denisa Mularova

Publication date: 12 January 2017


Key points:


  • The regulatory framework must ensure that the same potential losses are not covered both by capital and provisions.

  • Discussions on the treatment of excess provisioning should be accelerated. The revision of the treatment of accounting provisions cannot take place in blocks without considering all relevant major aspects altogether.

  • Provisions in excess of 12 months should be considered for capital purposes regardless of the capital method used to calculate capital.


  • Excesses and shortfalls in provisions should be treated symmetrically both under the standardized approach (STA) and internal ratings-based (IRB) approaches. If this symmetrical treatment is accepted, then the regulatory EL could be useful in providing a basis for such a symmetrical treatment for STA. However it needs further considerations and recalibrations to eliminate overlaps.

Document no longer available.

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