Systemic risk indicators for the banking sector

Os vultosos custos econômicos e sociais resultantes de crises financeiras têm conduzido os esforços de organismos internacionais e autoridades de supervisão para pesquisas sobre o risco sistêmico. O objetivo tem sido buscar características comuns que possam prever a proximidade das crises. Na mesma linha, este estudo visou desenvolver índices de risco sistêmico (IRS), formados por variáveis contábeis e de riscos, capazes de mensurar o nível de risco sistêmico no setor bancário. A regressão logística revelou a existência de indicadores com significância estatística na segregação dos sistemas bancários pelo nível de risco, especialmente aqueles relacionados com a qualidade dos créditos, os resultados e a taxa de juros. Os indicadores identificados como mais relevantes são: a volatilidade da inadimplência, da rentabilidade e da taxa de juros, e a média da rentabilidade e do risco de crédito. Além disso, a comparação da evolução dos indicadore com as crises ocorridas demonstrou a eficácia dos IRS na mensuração do risco nas crises bancárias sistêmicas.The significant economic and social costs caused by financial crises have conducted the efforts of international institutions and supervisory authorities towards research about systemic risk. The main goal has been to identify common characteristics able to foresee the proximity of crises. Likewise, this study aimed to develop systemic risk indicators (IRS), comprising accounting and economic variables, able to measure the systemic risk level of the banking sector. The indicators were submitted to logistic regression analysis and the result revealed indicators able to discriminate banking systems according to the risk level with statistical significance. The most relevant indicators are related to the volatility of non-performing loans, profitability and interest rate, as well as mean profitability and credit risk. In addition, the comparison between the indicators' evolution and the crises that have occurred demonstrated the IRS' efficacy for risk measurement in systemic banking crises

Informational Capacity of the Financial Statements of Brazilian Banks: An Analysis from the Perspective of Liquidity Risk

This study aims to analyze the financial statements of Brazilian banks, from the perspective of liquidity risk by exploring whether the Statements of Cash Flows and Notes to these companies meet the requirements concerning the dissemination of liquidity risk demands by IFRS 7 and the principles of the Basel Committee. Additionally, we investigated whether the coefficients of box cover these companies, calculated from the DFC, show some respect to compliance with those requirements. For that, was raised a theoretical framework about liquidity and liquidity risk, and the role of DFC and Notes before the disclosure of information relating to liquidity. Accordingly, an exploratory study was conducted with the 28 companies that comprise the Banks segment of the BM&F Bovespa, through its financial statements for the year 2009. The main results indicate a low capacity of these informative statements about the situation and liquidity risk, given that only 60.71% of the requirements contained in the standards were met. Still, we conclude that the mere fact that it has good cash coverage ratios is not a necessary condition to be among the companies that meet the disclosure requirements of the situation and liquidity risk, or vice versa. Thus, even when companies have good liquidity indicators, the information required by the IASB and the BCBS has not been disclosed in its financial statements

Determinantes do Spread Bancário Ex-Post no Mercado Brasileiro

Bank profitability is usually considered a relevant factor to provide the reliability of the financial system, reducing the risks associated to events of bankruptcy in this sector. In Brazil, however, there has been a great deal of discussion concerning the amount of earnings of financial institutions operating in the country, centered on the argument that such earnings are too large, becoming an excessive burden to the wealth-producing sector. For this reason, several studies have evaluated the structure, the evolution, and the determinants of banking spread, which is taken as the main variable responsible for the supposedly abnormal earnings. From the methodological viewpoint, these studies have concentrated in investigating the ex-ante banking spread related to operations with free resources and they have utilized macroeconomic factors as independent variables. The present study aims at identifying variables determining the ex-post banking spread, privileging explanatory variables intrinsic to the institutions, in other words, microeconomic. The extant literature on determinants of banking ex-post spread in Brazil presents a single previous paper, which presents poor results due to a problem of micronumerosity. To avoid such problem, our study utilizes data of balance sheets of banking institutions with operating credit portfolios from January 2000 to October 2009. Using a dynamic panel-data regression model, we test nine hypotheses and we find that the level of ex-post banking spread has relationships which are significant and: (i) positive with the credit portfolio risk; (ii) negative with the relative participation of the institutions in the credit market. On the other hand, we could not find statistically significant relationships between the level of ex-post banking spread and: the level of coverage of administrative expenses by revenues from services rendered; the origin of the institutions’ controlling capital, i.e. national versus foreign and state-owned versus private; the economy’s basic interest rate; the volatility of the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange stock index.

Discretionary actions in measuring derivatives as a mechanism for earnings management in banks

O artigo tem por objetivo identificar se os bancos brasileiros são discricionários quanto às escolhas contábeis quando do reconhecimento e mensuração dos derivativos para o gerenciamento de resultados e quais são os determinantes dessa prática. Utilizando modelo de dois estágios para segregar a parcela discricionária do valor justo estimado dos derivativos e com base em informações entre o terceiro trimestre de 2002 e o quarto trimestre de 2010, os resultados empíricos confirmam a reversão da parcela discricionária em períodos subsequentes, revelam que os bancos utilizam esse tipo de ação como mecanismo para o alisamento de resultados, e evidenciam que essa prática é mais comum nas instituições privadas, com menores ativos e menor nível de capitalização. As evidências avançam em relação a estudos anteriores, que identificaram o uso de derivativos na prática do gerenciamento de resultados pelos bancos, mas não associaram essa prática à ação discricionária da administração. _________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTThe paper has the purpose of identifying whether Brazilian banks use discretionary accounting choices when recognizing and measuring derivatives for practicing earnings management and which are the determinants of this practice. Using a two-stage model to segregate the discretionary part in the estimated fair value of derivatives and based on information from the third quarter of 2002 to the fourth quarter of 2010, the empirical results confirm the reversing nature of these discretionary actions, show that banks utilize this type of action as a mechanism for earnings smoothing, and disclose that this practice ismore common in private institutions, smaller in asset size and with lower capitalization. The evidence advances with respect to the previous literature, which have identified the use of derivatives in practicing earnings management by banks, but have not associated this practice to discretionary actions by the management

Índices de risco sistêmico para o setor bancário

Os vultosos custos econômicos e sociais resultantes de crises financeiras têm conduzido os esforços de organismos internacionais e autoridades de supervisão para pesquisas sobre o risco sistêmico. O objetivo tem sido buscar características comuns que possam prever a proximidade das crises. Na mesma linha, este estudo visou desenvolver índices de risco sistêmico (IRS), formados por variáveis contábeis e de riscos, capazes de mensurar o nível de risco sistêmico no setor bancário. A regressão logística revelou a existência de indicadores com significância estatística na segregação dos sistemas bancários pelo nível de risco, especialmente aqueles relacionados com a qualidade dos créditos, os resultados e a taxa de juros. Os indicadores identificados como mais relevantes são: a volatilidade da inadimplência, da rentabilidade e da taxa de juros, e a média da rentabilidade e do risco de crédito. Além disso, a comparação da evolução dos indicadore com as crises ocorridas demonstrou a eficácia dos IRS na mensuração do risco nas crises bancárias sistêmicas.The significant economic and social costs caused by financial crises have conducted the efforts of international institutions and supervisory authorities towards research about systemic risk. The main goal has been to identify common characteristics able to foresee the proximity of crises. Likewise, this study aimed to develop systemic risk indicators (IRS), comprising accounting and economic variables, able to measure the systemic risk level of the banking sector. The indicators were submitted to logistic regression analysis and the result revealed indicators able to discriminate banking systems according to the risk level with statistical significance. The most relevant indicators are related to the volatility of non-performing loans, profitability and interest rate, as well as mean profitability and credit risk. In addition, the comparison between the indicators' evolution and the crises that have occurred demonstrated the IRS' efficacy for risk measurement in systemic banking crises