Insights from the EBA’s recent workshop provide a clear roadmap, shifting the conversation from strategic vision to the operational realities of implementation. In this final Q&A, Regnology experts Dr. Johannes Turner and Erik Becker analyse the practical impacts for both banks and regulators.
The recent EBA workshop seems to have shifted the focus from high-level strategy to practical execution. What was the most concrete takeaway for you?
Erik Becker: The most significant development was the shift from abstract goals to concrete, measurable targets. For the first time, the EBA presented a quantified simplification target, illustrating a planned reduction in the harmonized supervisory reporting framework from more than 600,000 data points to approximately 295,000 data points by the first implementation wave in Q3 2027.
Importantly, this is not deregulation. New requirements, such as IFRS 18, FRTB, ESG reporting, and changes to operational risk, continue to be incorporated into the framework. The objective is therefore not to reduce supervisory insight, but to reduce duplication, streamline reporting structures, and improve data reuse across reporting domains. What makes this significant is that the EBA is no longer only describing a vision; it is beginning to define measurable outcomes and a practical roadmap to achieve them.
There's a lot of focus on those data point reductions, but you've both suggested simplification alone isn't enough to reduce costs. Why is that?
Johannes Turner:Because simplification is not to be confused with deregulation. Regulators' need for information continues to grow. Simply reducing a few data points won't solve the core problem if the underlying frameworks remain siloed and inefficient. The only sustainable way to manage growing information needs is through a much broader integration strategy; otherwise, the burden simply reappears in another form.
The workshop effectively provided the empirical evidence for what we described in Part 2 as the "Regulatory Web." While the EBA is simplifying the harmonized reporting framework, it also highlighted that in 2025, authorities issued 671 additional structured micro-prudential data requests, amounting to approximately 978,000 data points. Many of these requests are concentrated in areas already covered by existing reporting, particularly credit risk, counterparty credit risk, and liquidity risk. This is highly significant because it demonstrates that the reporting burden is not driven solely by COREP and FINREP.
This, alongside the ECB’s recent IReF announcement, reinforces the same broader trend: true efficiency gains will come from greater harmonization, data reuse, and integration across all reporting domains.
The industry's biggest challenge is no longer just the volume of data, but the frequency and unpredictability of regulatory change. Banks are essentially asking regulators for better governance, showing the problem has evolved from a pure data burden to a change-management and process burden.
Erik Becker
Product Director
Regnology
The workshop also discussed an "Industry Wish List." What did this reveal about where banks feel the most pressure?
Erik Becker: The "Wish List" provided a fascinating insight: the industry's biggest challenge is no longer just the volume of data, but the frequency and unpredictability of regulatory change. Banks are essentially asking regulators for better governance. The most common requests were for longer implementation timelines, earlier availability of technical specs, better impact assessments, and more multi-year planning visibility. Institutions are asking for better change management just as much as they are asking for simplification: the problem has evolved from a pure data burden to a change-management and process burden.
Given these challenges, how does the EBA plan to build the bridge from today's fragmented landscape to a more integrated future?
Johannes Turner: The recommendations themselves are that bridge. They shouldn't be viewed as isolated initiatives, but as a coordinated transition program designed to make the integrated vision operational. The key building blocks of this new governance framework include the Public EU Repository for data requests to increase transparency, "common rules" to ensure new requests are justified, improved reporting change management, and the development of new reporting burden metrics that go beyond counting data points to consider factors like complexity, implementation effort, and operational impact.
For supervisors, the SupTech model is evolving from simple data definition to data orchestration. The workshop revealed a clear ‘shift in supervisory thinking,’ increasingly asking 'Can this data be reused?' before launching new data collections.
Dr.Johannes Turner
Strategic SupTech Director
Regnology
Finally, what does this practical shift from vision to execution mean for the future of RegTech and SupTech?
Erik Becker: For banks, the practical focus for RegTech must now be on data reuse, integrated architectures, semantic consistency, and clear data lineage. The challenge is shifting from producing reports to managing a cohesive data ecosystem that can handle constant change.
Johannes Turner: And for supervisors, the SupTech model is evolving from a simple definition of data requirements to data orchestration. The workshop revealed a clear ‘shift in supervisory thinking’ increasingly asking "Can this data be reused?" before launching new data collections. However, a culture shift is required for all supervisors to fully adopt repository-driven oversight with more granularity and data sharing. The direction is clear, even if the journey will take time.
EBA simplification is the first step toward integrated supervision
In this Q&A, Regnology experts analyze the EBA's plan to untangle the "Regulatory Web" of fragmented reporting. They explain it is the first phase of a two-step global trend toward Integrated Supervision, moving from eliminating silos within regulatory domains to the future vision of enabling data sharing between them.
EU Supervisory Reporting: Why the EBA’s simplification agenda is really a data architecture story
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Discover financial institutions’ regulatory reporting obligations and challenges, and a framework they can use to assess both the cost of compliance and of upgrading their systems to facilitate it.
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