The financial crisis has brought significant regulatory changes for credit institutions, many of them aimed at strengthening their capital requirements and creating safety buffers to absorb losses and recapitalise unsound and failing institutions.

The latest is an instrument known as senior non-preferred debt, which is midway between senior debt and subordinated/Tier 2 debt. This instrument will not qualify as Tier 1 or Tier 2 capital, but will be eligible to compute for purposes of TLAC/MREL requirements and will be cheaper for banks than pure subordinated debt.