Banking Resolution
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Banking resolution in Europe

Banking resolution is the set of legal powers that lets an authority manage the failure of a bank without ordinary insolvency, keeping its critical functions running while losses fall on shareholders and creditors instead of taxpayers. This site documents the law, the authorities, the loss-absorbing debt and the cases where the framework has actually been used — a glossary, entity profiles and an MREL-eligible issuance database compiled from the official registers and publications.

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Debt instruments tracked
168,163
Capital-stack instruments
25,746
Entities covered
125
Last FIRDS sync
2026-08-04

What is on this site

Nine sections, two kinds of content: data compiled by automated pipelines from official registers, and editorial explanations reviewed by hand before publication. Nothing here is investment advice.

Glossary129 termsEvery concept in the framework, defined from the legal text and grouped by theme.Entities125 banksProfiles of the tracked universe: LEI, group structure, authority and disclosed ratios.Instruments168,163 ISINsThe debt each bank has issued, classified by seniority. Filter, chart and export it.Maturities4,967 next 12mThe redemption wall: what matures when, by year and by seniority class.Reporting33 templatesWhat banks report to their resolution authority: the Liability Data Report and the RESOL templates that replaced it, cell by cell.AuthoritiesWho decidesThe SRB, the ECB, national authorities and the standard setters — and where each applies.RegulationThe legal textsBRRD, SRMR, CRR and the technical standards, with what each instrument actually does.Cases7 case studiesReal failures reconstructed from the official record, layer by layer.News202 itemsPublications from the authorities themselves, polled every two hours.

How a bank failure is handled

Resolution replaces a disorderly insolvency with a sequence of legal decisions. Four steps, each a defined term.

  1. 01Failing or likely to failThe supervisor judges that a bank cannot survive without intervention.
  2. 02Public interest assessmentThe resolution authority decides whether resolution beats ordinary insolvency.
  3. 03Resolution toolsBail-in, sale of business, bridge bank or asset separation — chosen and executed.
  4. 04Bail-in waterfallLosses fall on shareholders, then creditors, in a fixed statutory order.

Legal basis: Directive 2014/59/EU (BRRD) and Regulation 806/2014 (SRMR). Read the texts.

Latest issuances

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Regulatory updates

All news
Ex-Ante Publicity for Plenary 2026srb2026-08-04Daily News 04 / 08 / 2026fisma2026-08-04Commission opens in-depth State aid investigation into arbitration award ordering Spain to pay compensation to JGC Holdings Corporationfisma2026-08-04Scaleup Europe Fund to start making investmentsfisma2026-08-03EBA E-mail alert 3 August, 2026eba2026-08-03EBA, EIOPA and ESMA propose amendments to bilateral margin requirementsesma2026-08-03Daily News 03 / 08 / 2026fisma2026-08-03Appointment of Chair and Deputy Chair of the Enforcement Decision Making Committee (EDMC)boe2026-08-03

The vocabulary, by theme

Full glossary
Framework and law11The directives, regulations and institutional architecture of the regime.Authorities10Who supervises, who decides and who executes.Planning and resolvability30Recovery and resolution planning, group structures and impediments.Triggers and valuation6The determinations that open a resolution and the valuations behind them.Resolution tools12The powers an authority exercises over a failing bank.Loss absorption and MREL14The capital and debt that must absorb losses first.Capital requirements22Prudential requirements, buffers and the ratios that carry them.Creditor hierarchy16Where each claim ranks when a bank fails.Funding and safety nets8Resolution funds, deposit guarantee schemes and the common backstop.

The framework, applied

All cases
2023GBSilicon Valley Bank UKWhen its US parent failed, the Bank of England resolved Silicon Valley Bank UK over a weekend, transferring it to HSBC for £1 — the first use of the UK's resolution transfer powers on a live retail-facing bank since the regime was built.2023CHCredit SuisseCredit Suisse was not resolved: Swiss authorities engineered its takeover by UBS over a weekend, ordering the full write-down of roughly CHF 16bn of AT1 instruments while shareholders retained value — a sequencing that forced EU authorities to reaffirm the creditor hierarchy in resolution.2022ATSberbank EuropeSanctions after Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered a run on Sberbank's European arm; the SRB used its moratorium power for the first time, then resolved the Croatian and Slovenian subsidiaries by sale while the Austrian parent went into insolvency.

Common questions

What is banking resolution?

Banking resolution is the set of legal powers that lets an authority manage the failure of a bank without ordinary insolvency: keeping critical functions running while losses fall on shareholders and creditors instead of taxpayers. In the EU it is governed by the BRRD and, in the banking union, the SRMR.

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What is MREL, and why does it matter to bondholders?

MREL is the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities: the stock of capital and bail-inable debt every EU bank must hold so that a resolution can be financed by investors. It determines which of a bank's bonds are expected to absorb losses first.

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In what order are a bank's creditors bailed in?

Equity absorbs losses first, then Additional Tier 1, Tier 2, senior non-preferred and finally senior preferred debt. Covered bonds, secured liabilities and deposits under EUR 100,000 are excluded from bail-in.

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What is the Liability Data Report, and does it still exist?

The Liability Data Report is the annual return through which banks in the banking union report the composition of their liabilities to the resolution authority. As a template it is gone: since the reference date of 31 December 2025 the same data is collected through the RESOL 1 templates of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2303, and the name survives as industry shorthand.

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Where does the data on this site come from?

Instrument data is built from ESMA FIRDS reference data, entity data from GLEIF and the ECB list of significant institutions, and disclosed ratios from the EBA transparency exercise. No figure is generated, estimated or interpolated.

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Data is compiled by deterministic pipelines from ESMA FIRDS, GLEIF, the ECB, the SRB and the EBA — never generated. Editorial content is drafted against the legal texts and reviewed before publication.

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