Article 123a Exposures with a currency mismatch

For exposures to natural persons that are assigned to the exposure class referred to in Article 112, point (h), or for exposures to natural persons that qualify as exposures secured by mortgages on residential property that are assigned to the exposure class referred to in Article 112, point (i), the risk weight assigned in accordance with this Chapter shall be multiplied by a factor of 1,5 , whereby the resulting risk weight shall not be higher than 150 %, where the following conditions are met:

the exposure is denominated in a currency which is different from the currency of the obligor’s source of income;

the obligor does not have a hedge for its payment risk due to the currency mismatch, either by a financial instrument or foreign currency income that matches the currency of the exposure, or the total of such hedges available to the borrower covers less than 90 % of each instalment for this exposure.

Where an institution is unable to single out those exposures with a currency mismatch, the risk weight multiplier of 1,5 shall apply to all unhedged exposures where the currency of the exposures is different from the domestic currency of the country of residence of the obligor.

For the purposes of this Article, source of income refers to any source that generates cash flows to the obligor, including from remittances, rental incomes or salaries, whilst excluding proceeds from selling assets or similar recourse actions by the institution.

By way of derogation from paragraph 1, where the pair of currencies referred to in paragraph 1, point (a), is composed of the euro and the currency of a Member State participating in the second stage of economic and monetary union (ERM II), the risk weight multiplier of 1,5 shall not apply.