On 19 June 2024, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a package of final draft RTS, final draft ITS and Guidelines on reporting, liquidity stress testing and supervisory colleges under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR). The final draft RTS on the use of asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs) denominated in a non-EU currency as a means of exchange illustrate the methodology that issuers of these tokens must apply to estimate the number and value of transactions associated to uses of these tokens ‘as a means of exchange’. The final draft ITS on the reporting obligations of issuers of ARTs and EMTs denominated in a non-EU currency, and of crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), provide templates and instructions for issuers of ARTs and EMTs denominated in a non-EU currency to comply with their reporting obligations. These templates will assist the significance assessment of the tokens, provide information on whether the threshold in Art. 23 MiCAR was met, and serve general supervisory reporting purposes. The ITS also provide templates and instructions that CASPs must provide to issuers of ARTs and EMTs denominated in a non-EU currency, as well as the reporting frequency and related reference and remittance dates. The Guidelines on liquidity stress testing specify the risks to be covered in the liquidity stress testing, as well as the common reference parameters of the stress test scenarios to be included in the liquidity stress testing to be applied. Following the application of the Guidelines, the supervisor may strengthen the liquidity requirements of the relevant issuer to cover those risks. The final draft RTS on supervisory colleges establish the conditions under which certain entities (custodians of the reserve of assets, trading platforms and CASPs providing custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients) are to be deemed ‘the most relevant’ in their category, and the conditions under which a significant ART or EMT is to be deemed to be ‘used at large scale’, in order to determine the composition of a supervisory college under MiCAR. The RTS also set out the general conditions for the functioning of supervisory colleges. The final draft RTS and ITS will now be submitted to the European Commission for endorsement, followed by scrutiny by the European Parliament and the Council, before being published in the EU Official Journal. The EBA will also develop the data point model (DPM), XBRL taxonomy and validation rules based on the final draft ITS. The Guidelines will be translated into the official EU languages and published on the EBA website. The deadline for competent authorities to report whether they comply with the Guidelines will be 2 months after the publication of the translations.
