The Complementarity of Regulatory and Internal Governance Mechanisms in Banks.

Decisions taken by the manager of a bank are subject to the regulatory discipline of the Basel Committee in conjunction with the supervisory discipline of the Board of Directors, a body that represents shareholders. This research demonstrates that the two types of discipline act in complement to each other, whereas the extant literature shows that regulatory discipline is replacing the internal discipline exercised by the Board of Directors. We also show that these internal and external governance mechanisms are relevant to explain the simultaneous influences between financial performance, risk-taking and the capitalization of French banks from 1998 to 2004.Bank governance; financial performance; capital adequacy; risk-taking; banking regulation;

Capital adequacy and risk management - premises for strengthening financial system stability

In the last decades, we have witnessed the progressive integration of European financial system, as a result of the cumulative effect of markets' liberalization, innovation and globalisation, and of harmonization of the regulations and implementation of financial reforms by the EU Member States. In this context, increased risk of financial instability necessarily requires the development of standards and codes of best practices in order to improve financial system integrity and stability, and to insure the health of the global banking and financial markets. From this perspective, the Basel II Accord represents a true revolution, aiming the improvement of the consistency of capital regulations internationally and better operational risk management practices. As a member of the EU, Romania is currently through the stages of implementation of Basel II, starting 1st of January 2008. As a central bank, NBR main objectives are: to adapt national legislation; to coordinate the efforts of credit institutions to develop new strategies regarding solvency, capital adequacy and measurement system for each risk category; to impose the disclosure requirements for financial reports and to adapt the IT system.Basel II Accord, capital adequacy, financial system stability, minimum capital requirements, risk management, risk-weighted assets

Comparative analysis of alternative credit risk models : an application on German middle market loan portfolios

In recent years new methods and models have been developed to quantify credit risk on a portfolio basis. CreditMetrics (tm), CreditRisk+, CreditPortfolio (tm) are among the best known and many others are similar to them. At first glance they are quite different in their approaches and methodologies. A comparison of these models especially with regard to their applicability on typical middle market loan portfolios is in the focus of this study. The analysis shows that differences in the results of an application of the models on a certain loan portfolio is mainly due to different approaches in approximating default correlations. That is especially true for typically non-rated medium-sized counterparties. On the other hand distributional assumptions or different solution techniques in the models are more or less compatible.Seit einigen Jahren finden sich in Wissenschaft und Bankpraxis neue Methoden und Modelle, um Risiken von Kreditportfolios zu messen. Zu den bekanntesten Vertretern gehören CreditMetrics(tm) , CreditRisk+ und CreditPortfolioView(tm) , welche sich auf den ersten Blick stark im Ansatz und in der Methodik unterscheiden. Im Mittelpunkt der vorliegenden Studie steht ein Vergleich dieser Modelle und zwar insbesondere hinsichtlich ihrer Anwendbarkeit auf ein typisches Portfolio aus mittelständischen Bankkrediten. Die Analyse zeigt, dass Unterschiede in den Ergebnissen zweier Modelle für ein und dasselbe Portfolio vor allem auf unterschiedliche Verfahren in der Approximation von Ausfallkorrelationen zurückzuführen sind. Dies gilt insbesondere für Kredite an nicht-geratete mittelständische Unternehmen

Procyclicality in the banking industry: causes, consequences and response

Procyclicality is an inherent feature of the real and especially the financial sector of an economy, which has been highlighted by the recent crisis. Due to procyclicality, banks are transformed from mitigation mechanisms to amplifiers of changes in economic activity potentially affecting financial stability. The causes of procyclicality can be attributed to market imperfections and deviations from the efficient market hypothesis, while other factors -including Basel II and accounting standards- may have exacerbated it. To attenuate procyclicality, a number of suggestions have been made in the form of rules and discretion and are presented according to the factors they aim to alleviate. Some of the suggestions have been adopted under the Basel III framework, including the countercyclical capital buffer. Although these Basel III proposals seem able to address the procyclicality issue, they will lead to higher minimum capital adequacy ratios, which are expected to increase lending costs and the provision of loans by banks, and reduce economic activity. However, the cost of the new proposals is expected to be lower than the estimated cost of financial crisis.Banking; procyclicality; demand and supply of loans; capital requirements; BasII and III

Financial liberalisation and interest rate risk management in sub-Saharan Africa

The appropriateness of financial liberalisation in Africa - at least over the short-term - is in doubt. It has been suggested that the credit risks faced by financial institutions will be detrimental to the supply of credit. The contribution of this paper is to point out that financial liberalisation creates a significant interest rate risk. It is argued that this interest rate risk will bias African banks’ activities towards brokerage rather than maturity-transformation functions. Furthermore, it is stressed that the management of interest rate risk is in itself likely to lead to a reduction in the supply of credit. In this regard the usefulness of capital adequacy as defined by the Basle Committee is investigated.

The Finnish Banking Crisis and Its Handling (an update of developments through 1993)

The paper is an update through early 1994 of a similarly titled paper (Bank of Finland Discussion Papers 8/93). It gives a brief description of the evolution of the Finnish banking crisis and its handling. In the first section, the salient features of the Finnish banking system are described. We then briefly discuss the liberalization process, macroeconomic and regulatory policies, and the subsequent credit boom and its development into a recession of unprecedented depth. Next, we document the impact on bank profitablity of the drastic changes in macroeconomic conditions. The collapse and rescue of Skopbank are summarized. In section 2 we describe the public safety net, starting with the pre-crisis arrangements. This is followed by an exposition in section 3 of the new measures taken in 1992 and 1993, with the emphasis on the establishment of the Government Guarantee Fund, its organization, powers and principles of operation. Section 4 gives an account of the support measures taken by the Goverment Guarantee Fund in the course of 1992 and the whole of 1993. Finally, in section 5, we discuss the banks' current economic environment and their prospects in the near future, now also brought forward into early 1994. The paper includes references to recent articles and discussion papers dealing with important aspects of the current banking crisis. The list of references is by no means exhaustive, and it is designed mainly to help foreign readers to find supplementary material. Therefore only those papers in Finnish or Swedish which have to do most with the current crisis are included.banking; crisis

On the origins of the BIS macro-prudential approach to financial stability: Alexandre Lamfalussy and financial fragility

Among the international policy institutions, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is known for its sensitivity to financial stability issues. Attention to the "macro-prudential" dimension of financial stability is very typical for the BIS. The Bank's macro-prudential approach first came to the fore in the 1986 Cross Report. It defined the macro-prudential domain as "the safety and soundness of the broad financial system and payments mechanism". In this paper, it will be argued that Alexandre Lamfalussy, who was at the BIS from 1976 to 1993, played a crucial role in shaping the Bank's approach to financial stability. Lamfalussy is renowned for taking a broad macroeconomic view and for focusing on the systemically important financial institutions, as the failure of one of these individual institutions would threaten the whole financial system. In Lamfalussy's view, there is thus very much an overlap between the micro- and macro-prudential dimensions of financial stability. This paper traces Lamfalussy's analysis of financial fragility and goes into the reasons for his sensitivity to it. Among the main elements involved were: a "Keynesian" Weltanschauung (that a market economy is not sufficiently self-correcting); the emphasis of Dupriez (his teacher in Louvain) on cycles; Lamfalussy's own experience as a commercial banker; BIS involvement in financial stability issues, especially the Latin American debt crisis of 1982-83; and research in the central banking community on financial innovations in the early 1980sLamfalussy, BIS, macro-prudential, systemic stability, financial fragility, risk