Search results

Capital is key to any financial institution. Companies in other industries need capital to buy property and production equipment. For financial institutions, the primary function of capital is to cover unexpected credit and market risks losses, because risk of such losses inevitably accompanies a bank’s core business of lending money and making markets. David Rowe, Dean Jovic and Richard Reeves explain why it is crucial for financial institutions to build an advanced economic capital framework and how that plays into current initiatives to implement the Basel II Capital Accord.

Examines the rapid advances in risk measurement capabilities of financial institutions with the Basle Accord standards firmly in mind. Gives firm guidelines from the Basle Committee and recommendations and examples. States many financial institutions have developed methods for relating risk to capital, similar to the framework outlined in the recommendations. Looks at applications of economic capital and explores how these can be used to improve management decision making. Sums up that the need for financial institutions to design and implement what is required is pressing indeed.

Capital matters to most corporations in free markets, but there are differences. Companies in non‐financial industries need equity capital mainly to support funding to buy property and to build or acquire production facilities and equipment to pursue new areas of business. While this is also true for financial institutions, their main focus is somewhat different. Banks actively evaluate and take risks on a daily basis as part of their core business processes. For example, the commercial lending business inherently involves weighing the credit risk of new loans and their associated mitigates. This involves analysis of the credit quality of the underlying obligor, the effectiveness of guarantees, collateral, cross‐default and other forms of credit protection. Today, however, best practice does not stop there. It also is necessary to evaluate the impact of portfolio diversification (e.g. in terms of geographical or industry concentration of exposures) and the degree of correlation among exposures on the bank's balance sheet. Another example is trading activity whereby a bank benefits from high trading volumes (by earning the bid/ask spread) and hopes to gain from proprietary net positions, but must bear some degree of market risk in the process.

With this chapter, the authors reveal the content of the concept of economic capital, explore approaches to its evaluation, assess the implementation of the concept of economic capital in the national banking system, and identify problems and possible directions for development and convergence of the Russian approach with international requirements. As a result, the need to apply the model of economic capital in assessing bank capital is substantiated. A concept (from Latin “conception” – understanding a system) is a specific way of understanding (interpreting) an object, phenomenon, or process; that is, the main point of view on the subject and the guiding idea for its systematic coverage. This term is also used to refer to a leading idea and a constructive principle in scientific activity.

Initially, since 1988, under prudential supervision – a direct, quantitative-oriented approach, there existed a concept of regulatory capital, reflected in the document “International Convergence of Measurement Methods and Capital Standards” (Basel I). Regulatory capital was calculated to meet regulatory oversight standards. It was intended to cover unforeseen losses and reserves already identified; thereafter, expected losses were created.

The concept of regulatory capital proceeds from the premise that if capital must cover unexpected losses, it should be borne in mind that a surprise approximates uncertainty. Consequently, the theoretical possibility of occurrence of certain events is excluded and, hence, the methodical and practical ground of the concept of economic capital disappears, which is based on the assessment of default probability and the magnitude of its negative consequences for creditors.

The change in trends in banking regulation (the actions of supervisory authorities in matters of capital adequacy acquired a risk-oriented nature that takes into account the risks assumed by each bank and the quality of their management) led to the emergence of the concept of economic capital in 2004, which is reflected in the document “International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Standards of Capital: New Approaches” (Basel II).

According to this concept, commercial banks must have sufficient capital to cover not only credit and market, but also the operational risks. Thus, economic capital takes into account all the risky circumstances that a banking institution may encounter. The need to apply the method of economic capital in assessing the capital of a bank is justified and significant.

“Economic capital (EC) is in – Value at Risk (VaR) is out!” This statement by James Lam, well known to be the first Chief Risk Officer (CRO) worldwide, at the April 2004 Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Symposium in Chicago, caused quite a reaction by the attendees. What is EC? Why are banks and insurance companies focused on calculating EC? What are the differences between EC and regulatory or rating agency capital? What are rating agencies’ views towards EC? This paper, summarising a panel on this topic, which was held at the ERM Symposium in Chicago in April of this year, attempts to answer these questions, focusing on the application of EC to life insurance companies.

The concept of a company's cost of capital is used in capital budgeting as a potential basic discount rate to be applied to expected future cash flows from a proposed investment project being subjected to evaluation for acceptance or rejection. Discounted‐cash‐flow capital budgeting techniques derive from valuation theory that determines present value of expected future cash flows by discounting them down to the present at a discount rate appropriate to the degree of risk involved. Conceptually, this is true with regard to both domestic investment and foreign direct investment. However, there is recognition in the literature that capital budgeting for foreign direct investment decisions may involve complexities not present in the domestic case. These include economic, financial, and political factors, and related risks, e.g., foreign exchange risk, blocked currencies, expropriation. On the other hand, foreign direct investment is thought to provide diversification benefits, so that risks that are not domestically diversifiable are internationally diversifiable, thereby eliminating some otherwise systematic risk. Complexities such as these place a considerable burden upon the concept of cost of capital as a discount rate appropriately reflective of the degree of risk involved in a foreign direct investment project. Furthermore, cost of capital may be affected by environmental factors associated with what country the parent corporation calls “home” (Stonehill and Dullum).

Demonstrates complete overview of risk‐adjusted performance measurement (RAPM) and how it can be a key management tool – particularly when combined with an economic capital allocation framework. Discusses RAPM and how it would enable senior management to allocate economic capital more effectively to help to maximize overall risk‐adjusted returns on the whole of the firm’s economic capital. Summarizes with correct risk management methodology institutions should see greater profits and the rest of the benefits to develop strong, risk control structure.

The 1988 Basel Accord and the proposed revisions to the Accord represent some of the most significant international regulations impacting the financial decisions of firms, in this case, financial services firms, in recent years. The revisions to the Accord incorporate operational risk into the capital, supervisory and market requirements. In our review of the issues in this area, we provide insight into the workings of an important international regulation. We also present suggestions for further research in this area that will become feasible when data on the impact of the new regulations become available after the proposed implementation in 2006.

This study aims to examine the relationship between bank capital and bank risk during COVID-19.

The study covers 20 countries during the period from Q4:2018 to Q4:2020, using different measurements of risk with consideration for the interrelationship between bank risk and bank capital and the impact of COVID-19.

The findings show that higher bank capital mitigates bank market risk and default risk; banks incur higher market risk during the COVID-19 period, and these risks are greater if banks have higher capital levels; and low-capitalized banks reduce risks more than well-capitalized banks, and moderately low-capitalized banks behave the most prudentially. These results are robust to different capital measures and model settings.

The research results are important in proving the motivation and practicality of capital regulation as well as the impact of COVID-19 as an exogenous shock to the bank’s operations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between bank capital and bank risk. In addition, while most of the studies on this nexus are based on the US data and the conclusions are inclusive; our results provide empirical cross-country evidences on the relationship between bank capital and bank risk.