(7)The trading of financial instruments, whether for the purposes of risk management, hedging or liquidity management or for taking directional positions on the value of the instruments over time, is an activity in which both credit institutions and investment firms authorised for dealing on own account may engage and which is already addressed by the prudential framework under Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 and Directive 2013/36/EU. In order to avoid an unlevel playing field which could lead to regulatory arbitrage between credit institutions and investment firms in this area, the own funds requirements resulting from those rules that address the risk should therefore also continue to apply to those investment firms. The exposures of those investment firms to their trading counterparties in specific transactions and corresponding own funds requirements are also covered by the rules and should therefore also continue to apply to investment firms in a simplified way. Finally, the rules on large exposures in the current prudential framework are also relevant when the trading exposures of those investment firms to specific counterparties are particularly large and thereby generate an excessively concentrated source of risk for an investment firm from the default of the counterparty. Those rules should therefore also continue to apply to investment firms in a simplified way.