(4)Technical standards should therefore establish specific definitions of forbearance and of non-performing exposures, and reporting templates to allow the EBA, competent authorities and the ESRB, to rely on asset quality concepts that are even more harmonised than the currently existing concepts. This would make the reported data even more comparable by minimising differences stemming from the varying concepts of forbearance and the differences in implementation of the default and impairment definitions across the Union. To this extent, the definition of non-performing exposure should act as a harmonised asset quality index, a classification tool, and not as a substitute for the existing definitions of default and impairment.