Regulatory policy stance

Evento: European Financial Services Round Table (EFR) meetin

10 years after the financial crisis. What have we learned and to what end

Evento: Round table. Organizado por: Universidad de Navarr

EAD calibration for corporate credit lines

Managing the credit risk inherent to a corporate credit line is similar to that of a term loan, but with one key difference. For both instruments, the bank should know the borrower's probability of default (PD) and the facility's loss given default (LGD). However, since a credit line allows the borrowers to draw down the committed funds according to their own needs, the bank must also have a measure of the line's exposure at default (EAD). Our study, which is based on a census of all corporate lending within Spain over the last 20 years, provides the most comprehensive overview of corporate credit line use and EAD calculations to date. Our analysis shows that defaulting firms have significantly higher credit line usage rates and EAD values up to five years prior to their actual default. Furthermore, we find that there are important variations in EAD values due to credit line size, collateralization, and maturity. While our results are derived from data for a single country, they should provide useful benchmarks for further academic, business and policy research into this underdeveloped area of credit risk management.Commercial loans ; Bank loans ; Credit

How does competition impact bank risk-taking?

A common assumption in the academic literature and in the actual supervision of banking systems worldwide is that franchise value plays a key role in limiting bank risk-taking. As the underlying source of franchise value is assumed to be market power, reduced competition has been considered to promote banking stability. Boyd and De Nicolo (2005) propose an alternative view where concentration in the loan market could lead to increased borrower debt loads and a corresponding increase in loan defaults that undermine bank stability. Martinez-Miera and Repullo (2007) encompass both approaches by proposing a nonlinear relationship between competition and bank risk-taking. Using unique datasets for the Spanish banking system, we examine the empirical nature of that relationship. After controlling for macroeconomic conditions and bank characteristics, we find that standard measures of market concentration do not affect the ratio of non-performing commercial loans (NPL), our measure of bank risk. However, using Lerner indexes based on bank-specific interest rates, we find a negative relationship between loan market power and bank risk. This result provides evidence in favor of the franchise value paradigm.Bank competition

Solvencia bancaria, riesgo de crédito y regulación pública: El caso de la provisión estadística española

El objetivo de este trabajo es explicar el funcionamiento de la provisión estadística para insolvencias, recientemente creada por el Banco de España, y su utilidad como instrumento para una adecuada regulación pública de las entidades de depósito. Se justifican las razones por las que se ha implantado esta provisión en España y el interés que puede tener para atemperar el impacto que los ciclos financieros tienen sobre el ciclo real de la economía así como su relevancia en el marco del nuevo Acuerdo de Capital de Basilea. Classification-JEL : G18, G21.regulación bancaria, riesgo de crédito, provisión estadística, solvencia bancaria.

Determinants of access to external finance: evidence from Spanish firms

Access to external finance is a key determinant of a firm's ability to develop, operate and expand. To date, the literature has examined a variety of macroeconomic and microeconomic factors that influence firm financing. In this paper, we examine access by Spanish firms to external financing, both from bank and non-bank sources. We use dynamic panel data estimation techniques to estimate our models over a sample of 60,000 firms during the period from 1992 to 2002. We find that Spanish firms are quite dependent on short-term non-bank financing (such as trade credit), which makes up about 65 percent of total firm debt. Our results indicate that this type of financing is less sensitive to firm characteristics than short-term bank financing. However, we also find that short-term bank debt seems to be accessed more during economic expansions, which may suggest a substitution away from non-bank financing as firm conditions improve. Short-term bank debt also seems to be accessed more as funding rates rise, possibly again suggesting a substitution away from higher-priced non-bank alternatives. Using data from the Spanish Credit Register maintained by the Banco de Espana, we find that the impact of funding costs on access to external financing, whether from banks or non-banks, is affected by the nature of borrowing firms' bank relationships and collateral. In particular, we provide evidence of a potential hold-up problem in loan markets. Moreover, collateral plays a key role in making long-term finance available to firms.Bank competition

The Asian and European Banking Systems: The case of Spain in the quest for development and stability

After a brief review of the literature on the determinants of financial development, the paper reviews the Asian and European financial systems in terms of their size and efficiency. It also compares the steps taken in the two regions in the quest for financial development and stability, which in a few cases are very similar but differ markedly in others. While there has been a clear move towards a more balanced financial structure in both regions, financial liberalization, as well as the strengthening of bank regulation and supervision occurred later in Asia and with a different speed and sequencing. The most striking difference between the two areas is the degree of international - and regional – financial integration, much lower for Asia. Finally, the case of Spain - as a European country with a finance-led convergence process - is analyzed in more detail. Lessons are drawn from the Spanish experience for Asian countries.Financial development, financial liberalization, Spanish financial system

Credit supply - Identifying balance-sheet channels with loan applications and granted loans

To identify credit availability we analyze the extensive and intensive margins of lending with loan applications and all loans granted in Spain. We find that during the period analyzed both worse economic and tighter monetary conditions reduce loan granting, especially to firms or from banks with lower capital or liquidity ratios. Moreover, responding to applications for the same loan, weak banks are less likely to grant the loan. Our results suggest that firms cannot offset the resultant credit restriction by turning to other banks. Importantly the bank-lending channel is notably stronger when we account for unobserved time-varying firm heterogeneity in loan demand and quality. JEL Classification: E32, E44, E5, G21, G282007-09 crisis, business cycle, capital, credit channel, credit supply, financial accelerator, firm borrowing capacity, liquidity, monetary policy, net worth, non-financial and financial borrower balance-sheet channels

Spanish boom-bust and macroprudential policy

Artículo de revistaIn this paper we review the experience of the last Spanish boom and bust to cast some reflections on macroprudential policy. These reflections take place in a country, Spain that is a (relatively small) member of a larger monetary union, which also has a single banking microsupervisor as well as a central bank, the ECB that can top-up national macroprudential decisions. Beyond the euro zone, the experience of the Spanish lending boom-bust maybe also interesting for other policy makers, with a full array of tools to tame the lending cycle