As set out in Regulation (EU) 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, for calculating the regulatory capital for operational risk under Basel I, advanced measurement approaches (AMA method) are used for a very significant part of the banking perimeter. Specifically, this method is used in Spain and Mexico, which accumulate most of the Group's assets.
In March 2010, BBVA Group received authorization from the Bank of Spain to apply advanced measurement approaches to the calculation of regulatory capital for operational risk in Spain and Mexico. Until 2011, the Group maintained a floor for the capital requirements produced by the internal model so they were not lower than the requirements of the standardized operational risk approach. Given the positive performance of the internal model since its approval, the Group requested that the Bank of Spain withdraw the floor referred to. Since the close of 2011, the Group calculates its capital requirements without the floor, although with what is still a partial recognition of the effect of diversification, which gives rise to more conservative estimates.
While the basic approach is still applied exceptionally, the standardized approach is used to calculate capital in the rest of the geographical areas.