Overview

A resolution college is a permanent structure that coordinates the resolution authorities involved with a cross-border banking group. It is chaired by the group-level resolution authority and brings together the resolution authorities of the Member States where group entities are established, together with relevant supervisors, competent ministries and, where appropriate, deposit guarantee scheme authorities. Its function is to provide a forum for cooperation, information exchange and joint decision-making across the group.

How it works

The college is the venue for the key group resolution tasks that require agreement among authorities. These include drawing up and maintaining the group resolution plan, carrying out the group resolvability assessment, identifying and addressing impediments to resolvability, and setting MREL for group entities. Where possible, authorities aim to reach joint decisions on these matters; the framework sets out procedures, including timeframes and the possibility of referral to the European Banking Authority for binding mediation, for the situations where a joint decision cannot be reached.

Within the banking union, the dynamic is different because the Single Resolution Board acts as a single resolution authority for participating Member States, internalising much of the coordination that a college would otherwise perform. Colleges remain important for groups with entities in both participating and non-participating Member States, and for coordination with third-country authorities through arrangements such as crisis management groups at the international level.

Resolution colleges are established under the BRRD (Art. 88), which sets out their composition, the role of the group-level resolution authority as chair, and their tasks in group resolution planning and joint decision-making. These provisions operate together with the articles on group resolution plans and on group resolvability, and, within the banking union, with the SRM Regulation.

Relevance for banks and investors

For a cross-border group, the resolution college is where the group's resolution strategy, whether single point of entry or multiple point of entry, is coordinated and where MREL is allocated across entities. For investors, the college's decisions determine how loss-absorbing capacity is distributed between the parent and its subsidiaries and how a group failure would be handled across borders. Understanding which authority chairs the college, and how host authorities participate, helps in assessing where losses would fall within a group structure.