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This study aims to understand how quickly Japanese banks readjust their capital ratios (leverage, regulatory capital, tier-I capital and common equity) following an economic shock.

This study uses a two-step system GMM framework to test the study's hypotheses using the annual data of Japanese commercial and cooperative banks ranging from 2005 to 2020.

The findings show that banks adjust their leverage ratio faster than regulatory capital, tier-I capital and common equity ratios. In addition to that, the results reveal that the speed of capital adjustment is higher for commercial banks than for cooperative banks, suggesting higher economic costs and implications for commercial banks. Furthermore, it is worth noting that well-capitalised (under-capitalised) banks tend to prioritise the adjustments to common equity (leverage) before considering the adjustments to leverage (common equity). According to the results, high-liquid (low-liquid) banks alter their regulatory capital and tier-I capital ratios (leverage) more quickly (more slowly) than low-liquid (high-liquid) banks.

The findings suggest that when formulating and implementing new banking regulations, particularly in assessing and adjusting specific capital requirements under Pillar II of Basel III, management (including bankers, regulators and policymakers) should consider the heterogeneity observed in the rate of capital adjustment across various bank characteristics. Additionally, bank managers should also consider the speed of adjustment when determining optimal half-life and target capital structures.

To the author's knowledge, this study represents a pioneering investigation into the rate of adjustment of capital ratios (leverage, regulatory, tier-I and common equity) within Japan's banking sector. The study employs a comprehensive dataset encompassing both commercial and cooperative banks to facilitate this analysis. A notable contribution to the existing body of literature, this study offers a detailed analysis and emphasises the varying degrees of adjustment in capital ratios. The study also highlights the heterogeneous nature of the adjustment rate in these ratios by categorising the data into well-capitalised, under-capitalised, highly liquid and low-liquid banks.

Motivated by recent financial liberalization policies in emerging markets, this study investigates whether bank competition and regulatory capital affect bank risk taking in an international banking context.

Bank competition is regressed, using GLS regression, on various measures of bank risk, to reflect regulatory, accounting and market-based risk-taking. The authors use a sample of publicly traded banks operating in Africa during 2004–2019.

Results show that higher level of bank competition increases bank risk taking and results in greater financial fragility in the absence of banking capital regulations. Furthermore, larger capital adequacy ratios control the risk-taking incentives of managers and guard banks against the risk of default. Further tests confirm the significance of market-based risk measures over accounting and regulatory measures.

Findings are relevant to bank managers and regulators in their sustained effort of finding an optimal balance between bank competition and financial stability. Increased competition should be balanced with capital regulations to curtail bank excessive risky behavior and derive the social benefits of greater competition in the market while sustaining overall economic growth.

This study provides novel evidence in an international context. First, it uses regulatory, accounting and market-based measures of bank risk taking to reflect regulators', management and market participants' emphasis. Another original contribution is the investigation of bank competition across African economies characterized by financial liberalization, stringent banking system and interesting socio-economic challenges.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the internal ratings-based (IRB) approach provides more effective risk discrimination than the standardized approach when calculating regulatory capital for retail credit risk exposures.

The author uses four retail credit data sets to compare regulatory capital appropriation using the IRB approach and the standardized approach. The author follows the regulatory capital calculation method recommended under Basel III. For the IRB approach, the author uses a logistic regression to determine the probability of default.

The results suggest that the IRB approach provides more effective risk discrimination across individual exposures, which allows more regulatory capital to be held against riskier exposures and less regulatory capital to be held against less risky exposures. The author further argues that the Basel III output floor, as presently constructed, may disincentivize the use of the IRB approach and further diminish the value of secured lending under the IRB approach. To address this issue, the author offers two simple adjustments to the current design of the output floor.

While studies have argued the idea of risk-sensitive regulatory capital, the author has not observed any research that empirically compares the risk-sensitivity of regulatory capital across retail credit exposures, which makes up a significant portion of many banks’ credit exposures. This study also highlights what appears to be a major point of concern for the output floor, which is set to be phased in starting January 2022. This is of particular value because this point has not appeared to receive any attention in the literature thus far.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the effect of induced capital regulatory pressure on banks’ charter value and risk-taking, and the influence of bank’s charter value on its risk-taking under such a capital regulatory pressure.

The authors use two different estimations to check the robustness of the results. First, they apply a two-stage least squares mode to estimate the impact of capital requirements and bank charter value on bank risk-taking, with the influence of capital regulatory and market-force variables on bank charter value. Second, to reduce the problem of unobserved heterogeneity, the authors use dynamic panel data techniques as a check for robustness.

The empirical results show that higher capital requirements pressure brings about a lower charter value for banks, which in turn increases their risk-taking. The issue of banks’ risk-taking is also affected by their size: large banks seem to be more stable than their smaller counterparts.

The authors’ findings suggest that regulatory pressure has had the desired impact on insolvency risk for Chinese banks due to the expected penalty triggered by a breach of capital requirements.

It is the first paper that investigates the impact of capital regulatory pressure on risk-taking of the Chinese banking system, which sheds light on concerns about regulatory monitoring of bank risk and capital regulatory framework.

This paper measures the impact of capital regulation on Chinese bank charter value and risk-taking and offers some support for the implementation of Basel III in China.

The authors have constructed different measures of regulatory pressure to investigate the influence of new capital regulatory regime on banks’ behavior. Most importantly, the exogenous changes of banks’ capital ratio induced by capital regulatory pressure during the past decade that provides a unique opportunity to directly analyze the impact of capital regulatory pressure on bank charter value and risk-taking.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the gradual evolution of the supervisory policy adopted by the Basel Committee for the regulatory treatment of asset securitisation. The pathology of the new “securitisation framework” is carefully highlighted to facilitate a general understanding of what constitutes the current state of computing adequate capital requirements for securitised credit exposures. Although a simplified sensitivity analysis of the varying levels of capital charges depending on the security design of asset securitisation transactions is incorporated, the author does not engage in a profound analysis of the benefits and drawbacks implicated in the new securitisation framework.

To raise the quality of regulatory capital, Basel III capital rules recognize unrealized gains and losses on all available-for-sale (AFS) securities in Common Equity Tier 1 Capital (CET1). However, by examining the correlations between U.S. GDP growth rate, interest rates and regulatory capital ratios computed using Basel III regulatory capital definition for six U.S. global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) since 2007, this chapter finds that Basel III regulatory capital will enhance the pro-cyclicality of Basel III leverage ratio and Tier 1 capital ratio and their sensitivity to long-term interest rates. Therefore, Basel III capital standards may have significant implications for bank supervision and bank capital risk management in the near future. As banks will hold more high-quality liquid assets (HQLAs) as required by Basel III Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), the weight of unrealized gains and losses arising from fair value accounting will increase in Basel III Tier 1 capital base, the consequent increase of pro-cyclicality in a bank’s regulatory capital ratios may distort the true picture of bank capital adequacy. If an expected loss approach (EL) is used as the provisioning model, such capital risk may be increased further. Moreover, as U.S. monetary policy has started tapering quantitative easing, long-term interest rates will increase inevitably. This may increase the negative impact of unrealized gains and losses on AFS securities on bank capital. As a result, it may be difficult for banks to maintain appropriate capital ratios to meet regulatory requirements and support business activities.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of leverage, regulatory capital and tier-I capital ratios on the ex ante and ex post risk of Japanese banks.

To test the hypotheses, the authors have implemented a panel of 507 commercial and cooperative banks of Japan over the period extending from 2001 to 2020, using a two-step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) framework.

The overall sample banks' results show that the impact of leverage, regulatory capital and tier-I capital ratios on ex ante and ex post risk is positive. The findings reveal that the effects of regulatory and tier-I capital ratios on ex post risk are negative (positive) for commercial (cooperative) banks, high-liquid, low-liquid and high-growth banks in Japan. In addition, the regulatory capital ratio is more beneficial for risk due to its power to absorb losses. The lagged coefficient indicates that banks require more time to adjust their ex post and ex ante risk during crisis period than during normal economic conditions.

The heterogeneity in results has practical implications for regulators, policymakers and bank managers in formulating the capital requirement guidelines with respect to ex ante and ex post risk across different categories and characteristics of banks.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating the impact of leverage, regulatory capital and tier-I capital ratios on the ex ante and ex-post risk of Japanese commercial and cooperative banks over the period from 2001 to 2020. The insights into the impact of leverage, regulatory capital and tier-I capital ratios on the ex ante and ex post risk of well-capitalized, under-capitalized, high and low-liquid banks are new in the context of Japan.

The Basel committee proposes making regulatory capital requirements more risk sensitive. Cost‐benefit assessment suggests that this yields greater efficiency in the use of regulatory capital, but has substantial enforcement and compliance costs and may well increase the severity of banking crises. Better if the new Accord sets risk‐insensitive regulatory minimum capital standards and encourages banks to set risk‐sensitive desired capital targets with generous reductions in required capital for healthy banks with effective systems of risk management. Ten specific suggestions for improvement of the new Accord are made.

This paper aims to investigate the adequacy of regulatory capital funds through loss provisioning policies because of worsening credit quality associated with distressed financial conditions. A financial distress occurs when banks have difficulty in honoring financial commitments. This paper is expected to unveil how the provisioning mechanisms can address concerns associated with pro cyclicality of regulatory capital funds requirements, and how the banks behave in distressed financial conditions to share risks. The pro cyclicality of regulatory capital funds is the effect of various components of the financial system that aggravates the economic cycle such as during the expansion of the economy when banks are able to provide more loans and meet regulatory capital requirements with ease, while during the contraction of the economic cycle, can lead to deterioration of asset quality, and the resultant need to make loss provisions and recognize impairment. In turn, the situation puts further pressures on the capital requirements held by banks and their risk-sharing behavior. The paper analyzes a sample of Islamic banks in Malaysia.

By estimating credit risk-related information through loss provisioning policies, the paper uses an unbalanced panel data on all Islamic banks in the Association of Islamic Banking Institutions Malaysia from 2003 to 2014. The association consists of full-fledged Islamic banks and several foreign-owned entities.

The paper findings support that Islamic banks during observed period of distressed financial conditions were less discouraged to increase their regulatory capital funds to share risks. Intuitively, they were more encouraged to engage in risk-shifting behavior. Also, the risk-shifting behavior was found to have a significantly high potential in foreign-owned Islamic banks than in domestic Islamic banks.

Although the study is based on a sample of Islamic banks in Malaysia, the findings suggest targeted interventions aimed at discouraging risk shifting or transfer of risks in an interest-free Islamic financing.

The outcome of this paper has practical implications for Islamic banks to build a buffer of capital funds to face downward pressures during heightened financial uncertainties while serving as protection to depositors. Moreover, this study has practical implications for shareholders to avail themselves the benefits of high investment accounts financing. The Islamic banks can continue to play their role in promoting inclusive growth, reducing inequality and accelerating poverty reduction.

Although the current study is based on a sample of Islamic banks in Malaysia, the finding suggests that the extent of risk shifting was significantly more incentivized among the foreign-owned rather than the domestic Islamic banks. This information can be used to develop targeted interventions aimed at discouraging risk shifting or transfer of risks in an interest-free Islamic financing.

This paper is the first that investigates on adequacy of regulatory capital funds of Islamic banks through loss provisioning policies.

Purpose – To discuss, from the perspective of developing countries, recent proposals for reforming international standards for bank capital requirements.

Methodology/approach – After evaluating, from the viewpoint of developing countries, the effectiveness of capital requirements reforms and progress in implementing existing regulatory accords, the chapter discusses the procyclical effects of Basel regimes, and suggests a reform proposal.

Findings – Minimum bank capital requirements proposals in developing countries should be complemented by the adoption of an incremental, size-based leverage ratio.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter contributes to enlarge the academic and policy debate related to bank capital regulation, with a particular focus on the situation of developing countries.