British hedge fund firm Caius Capital had in May asked the EBA to open an investigation into the 2.98 billion euro ($3.46 billion) convertible and subordinated hybrid equity-linked securities known as CASHES, which UniCredit issued in 2008. Caius said the CASHES had been misclassified as the best-quality capital held by a bank.

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan; editing by Carolyn Cohn)