With the adoption of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, Europe has completed one of the three important pillars of the Banking Union. This directive introduces the resolution tool of 'bail in' that aims at putting the burden of bank rescue operations with the private sector. Bail outs financed with public money must be avoided, as a result of this new mechanism. The original ideas for contingent capital instruments had been developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2010, albeit that the concepts of the Basel Committee aimed at forcing the bank’s shareholders and creditors to contribute to loss absorption exclusively in situations where a bank was beyond a point of viability. The manner in which that concept was described at the time of issue of the report in 2010, suggested that the contingent capital mechanism was particularly to be applied in circumstances where a bank’s operation were still going concern. The European transposition of the ideas of the Basel Committee has taken place at the level of two different frameworks.