Probability of default (PD)
Does CP3 get it right?
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's third consultative paper raises several complex issues, not least of which is: will it work in practice?
Overcoming the hurdle
How should capital be allocated to different business lines in a financial institution? ThomasWilson explores this question from an investor's perspective by constructing a statisticalmodel that measures the risk of individual business types.
Accord preparations: the rest is yet to come
While the debates have raged for months about many aspects of the proposed Basel II Accord, on some points there has been relative silence, in particular with regard to the seeming overreliance on statistical techniques.
Overcoming the hurdle
How should capital be allocated to different business lines in a financial institution? Thomas Wilson explores this question from an investor’s perspective by constructing a statistical model that measures the risk of individual business types. The…
QIS3 results released by Basel Committee
A paper outlining the results of the third quantitative impact study (QIS3) was released by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision yesterday.
Taking it slow
Hong Kong's banks are, for the most part, targeting the standardised approach outlined in the new Basel capital Accord, but it is hoped that this will act as a catalyst for the further improvements in risk management.
Sponsor's article > No cure through the cycle
Some have argued that the antidote for pro-cyclicality in the Basel II capital requirements is the use of 'through-the-cycle' estimates of default and recovery rates. David Rowe argues that, whilethis might mitigate the pro-cyclical impact of the Accord,…
Niche lenders brace for Basel
Banks with niche lending businesses are scrambling to assemble enough data to allow them to benefit from Basel II's most advantageous capital provisions. Gallagher Polyn reports on one successful initiative.
Op risk modelling for extremes
Part 2: Statistical methods In this second of two articles, Rodney Coleman, of Imperial College London, continues his demonstration of the uncertainty in measuring operational risk from small samples of loss data.
Data hurdles
The risk management rumour mill has been buzzing in recent weeks with the story that US banking regulators have told the senior management of the country’s 30 largest banks that they will be expected to implement the advanced internal ratings-based (IRB)…
Sponsor's article > Basel II and pro-cyclicality
The main argument for making regulatory capital requirements more risk-sensitive is to improve allocational efficiency. But this may lead to intensified business cycles if regulators fail to take measures to prevent such an impact.
Avoiding pro-cyclicality
David Cosandey and Urs Wolf argue that, for small to medium-sized enterprises, Basel II is pro-cyclical because of a double-counting of the risks. They present two main directions for possible capital rules that would circumvent the pro-cyclicality…
Correlation and credit risk
Active development of full credit portfolio modelling continues apace, even though it is not recognised in the proposed Basel II framework.
A cost/benefit approach to Basel II
The cost of implementing Basel II could put banks at a competitive disadvantage compared with non-banks, and spur them to ‘de-bank’ to avoid this regulatory burden. Harry Stordel and Andrew Cross say regulators must look at the provisions from a cost…
Gaining an edge from Basel
The recent recommendations of the Basel Committee are set to usher in a period of upheaval for many participants in the banking sector. Standard & Poor’s Anthony Albert looks at how to gain a competitive advantage in credit risk management in the light…
A major improvement
In May, David Rowe wrote that the Basel Committee ‘could do better’ with respect to the inclusion of operational risk in the capital Accord. Here, he says the working paper the committee published in late September outlines a major and valuable…
Basel inflicts collateral damage
The current Basel proposals could lead to the global spread of the type of systemic loan loss problems Japan is now experiencing, argues John Frye of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Basel acts on private equity losses
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has issued a proposal for determining the capital reserves for bank equity exposures. It promises to be as controversial as the other aspects of the Basel II capital Accord.
Probing granularity
The granularity adjustment, which adjusts risk weightings for credit portfolio diversification, is one of Basel II’s key modelling assumptions. Here, Tom Wilde uncovers a weakness in this assumption arising from the differences in the underlying credit…
IRB approach explained
At the end of this month, the consultation period for the new Basel Accord on bank capital will end. We have prepared a technical section this month devoted to various issues surrounding Basel II. In the first paper, Tom Wilde sheds light on the…
Could do better
David Rowe argues that the Basel Committee can provide better incentives for improved operational risk management than those implicit in the draft revision to the capital Accord.
Implications of Basel for credit risk
Credit risk comes under the spotlight in Pillar one of the new Accord, forcing institutions to consider the benefits – and costs – of meeting the regulatory requirements. Jared Chebib, head of credit risk consulting at Andersen’s London office reports.
EU anticipates critics in its Op Risk charge proposals
While debates still rumble on over the new Basel capital accord, the European Union Commission's capital adequacy rules are prompting another set of arguments.
Basel's new credit model
The Basel Committee’s new consultative paper allows banks to internally rate individual credits. But at the portfolio level, Basel wants to apply a single model framework, based in part on a technical paper published in Risk magazine in October 1998.