According to Rule Eighty-Three of Bank of Spain Circular 3/2008 (“Composition of the trading book”), “the trading book shall be made up of all the positions in financial instruments and commodities that the credit institution maintains for the ‘purpose of trading’ or that act as hedging for other elements in this book.”
With respect to this book, the rule also refers to the need to establish clearly defined policies and procedures.
For this purpose, regulatory trading book activities defined by the BBVA Group include the positions managed by the Group’s Trading units, for which market risk limits are set and then monitored daily. Moreover, they comply with the other requirements defined in the solvency regulations.
The trading book as an accounting concept is not confined to any business area, but rather follows the true reflection criteria laid down in the accounting regulations. Included in this category are all the financial assets and liabilities originated, acquired or issued with the aim of short-term redemption or repurchase, whether they are part of a jointly-managed portfolio of instruments for which there is evidence of recent action to obtain short-term gains, or derivative instruments that do not comply with the definition of a collateral contract and have not been designated as hedge accounting instruments. Hence, for example, all derivatives are booked as accounting trading book unless they are hedging derivatives, regardless of whether or not they are part of the Trading units’ exposure or they come from other business areas.