Insurance
Sixth Street leads race to buy Allianz’s US annuity book
Credit investment firm spun out of TPG in 2020 snapping up insurance assets via its Tao fund
Asia moves: HSBC appoints new Apac head, Barclays hires country CEO for China, and more
Latest job changes across the industry
BlackRock’s own reporting undermines its climate claims
Axa, Allianz and Legal & General have all cut their investments’ emissions, unlike BlackRock
Applying scenario analysis to climate risk
Matthew Lightwood, director, risk solutions at Conning, discusses the application of stochastic modelling with scenario analysis to quantify climate risk in a portfolio
Asia moves: BIS appoints new chair for Asia council, VP Bank expands Asia leadership, and more
Latest job changes across the industry
Insurers’ favourite credit rating becomes more expensive
US institutions face a dilemma: go up a rating and lose yield or go down a rating and increase risk
Even Covid couldn’t stop insurers buying risky CLO tranches
NAIC rules make mezzanine debt more attractive than AAAs or corporate bonds with similar ratings
Aegon turns its back on pension deals in its home market
The Netherlands is Europe’s second-biggest pension market, but Aegon made little money from deals
The race to offload the world’s biggest pool of assets
Specialist insurers on both sides of the Atlantic expect a bumper post-Covid second half of 2021
Zurich’s Scott: don’t levy climate risk capital charges
Imposing set-asides based on stress tests “does not make any sense”, sustainability chief warns watchdogs
Early deaths could kill defined benefit pension shortfalls
Covid-19 will only worsen a trend in life expectancy that was already well underway
A bold step forward in climate-related financial risk supervision
Banque de France’s Denis Beau explains the results of a pilot exercise, and what comes next
Fed economist sounds alert over op risk capital arbitrage
Insurance payouts could allow banks to pare back capital without equivalent reduction in risk, says paper
Asia moves: HKEX names new CEO, BNY Mellon appoints Japan country executive, and more
Latest job news across the industry
Put options power up variable annuities
Insurance quants increase risk-adjusted profits using novel hedging technique
The importance of getting technology change right
Christoph Kurth, partner and member of the global financial institutions leadership team at Baker McKenzie, covers some of the rapid technological changes under way brought about by, and in the wake of, the Covid-19 pandemic
Callable repack frenzy opens up new options market in Europe
Demand driven mainly by French life insurers looking for alternatives to low-yielding sovereign bonds
Regulatory arbitrage in the use of insurance in the new standardized approach for operational risk capital
Basel’s new standardized approach (SA) for operational risk capital may allow for regulatory arbitrage through the use of insurance. Under the SA, banks will likely have an incentive to insure recurring losses. Such insurance can meaningfully reduce…
Korea lifers set to increase hedging as accounting shake-up looms
Bond forwards likely to be favoured instrument, but interest rate swaps market could develop
Solvency ratios of EU life insurers continued to fall in Q3
In contrast, the median capital ratio of groups and non-life firms increased
Equity derivatives house of the year: Citi
Risk Awards 2021: US bank vaults into the top-tier, with some help from Garry Kasparov
Credit Suisse bets on intraday vol signals to revive FIA sales
New line of fixed indexed annuities will use intraday data for more precise vol targeting
State regulators could lead on CFTC climate risk plans
Sympathetic rulemakers don’t need to wait for a change of federal government, say experts
Covid chaos ate into EU insurers’ own funds
Aggregate ratio of own funds to SCR fell 14 percentage points in Q1