The Influence of Economic Factors on the Capital Buffer Calibration for Systemically Important Institutions in the European Union

Capital requirements are key elements in banking regulation. As the failure of a systemically important institution poses a risk to the whole economy, they have to meet special regulations. Our research uses a unique data set to show the influence of economic factors on the capital buffer calibration for Other Systemically Important Institutions (O-SIIs). We show that the scoring process to identify and rank O-SIIs is comparable in the different countries of the EU, but the respective equity requirements are not. Nations with higher unemployment and a higher amount of non-performing loans demand less capital from their banks. Hence, their country average of capital buffer requirements per score depends on the economic situation rather than the scoring process as such.