After months of positioning by various EU, Banking Union and ECB policymakers across a range of speeches, interviews, articles as well as position papers, each calling for collective steps to be taken to tackle impaired assets, non-performing loans (NPLs) and non-performing exposures (NPEs), the European Central Bank (ECB) launched its “public consultation on the draft ECB guidance to banks on non-performing loans” on 12 September 2016.