A Theory of Conflicts of Interest in Banking Relationships

Abstract

This paper highlights a dark side of banking relationships by elucidating the conditions under which a pre-existing relationship between a lending bank and a borrower can be detrimental to positive valuation effects of loan announcements. The effect of a pre-existing relationship is more likely to be negative when the pre-existing loans are large and firms' screening costs are low. A theoretical model shows that loan announcement's positive effect on borrowers' value due to the standard information advantage can be more than offset by the bank's conflict of interest when the bank's asset quality reputation is poor, i.e. when the probability of the bank holding a bad loan is large.     

International knowledge spillovers through the import of information technology commodities

Since banks often lend via commitments, their lending and deposit-taking may be two manifestations of one primitive function: the provision of liquidity on demand. We explore this function under a cap-based valuation. We find that (i) the strike price of the cap-based valuation increases the bank's liquid asset holdings by increasing its loan rate and loan commitment rate (with the strategic rate-adjustment complements) and decreases the bank's external finance need by increasing its deposit rate, when the bank realizes a less risky state of the world and (ii) the number of caplet days decreases the bank's liquid asset holdings by decreasing its loan rate and loan commitment rate (with the strategic rate-adjustment complements and the strategic timing substitutes) and increases the bank's external finance need by decreasing its deposit rate (with the strategic timing substitutes), when the bank realizes a more risky state. Our findings provide alternative explanations concerning the bank's liquidity function under the cap-based optimization.     

Shocks to bank capital: evidence from UK banks at home and away

This article assesses how shocks to bank capital may influence a bank's portfolio behaviour using novel evidence from a UK bank panel data set from a period that predates the recent financial crisis. Focusing on the behaviour of bank loans, we extract the dynamic response of a bank to innovations in its capital and in its regulatory capital buffer. We find that innovations in a bank's capital in this (precrisis) sample period were coupled with a loan response that lasted up to 3 years. The international presence of UK banks allows us to identify a specific driver of capital shocks in our data, independent of bank lending to UK residents. Specifically, we use write-offs on loans to nonresidents to instrument bank capital's impact on UK resident lending. A fall in capital brought about a significant drop in lending in particular, to Private Nonfinancial Corporations (PNFC). In contrast, household lending increased when capital fell, which may indicate that, in this precrisis period, banks substituted into less risky assets when capital was short.     

The relevance of supply shocks for inflation: the spanish case

A retrenchment in crossborder credit is under way, the product of both market forces and political pressure on international banks to lend at home (Economist, 2009). In addition, banks, particularly the largest, have also dramatically expanded their retail banking operations over the past few years (Hirtle and Stiroh, 2007). Our goal, in this article, is to study the effects of default risk on equity returns through bank interest margin management under a renewed focus on domestic retail banking, a trend often attributed to the stability of banking activities. Specifically, this article explores the determinants of optimal bank interest margins based on an option-based firm-theoretical model with multiple sources of structural breaks due to political pressure. The model demonstrates how capital regulation and political pressure on foreign lending return and risk conditions jointly determine the optimal bank interest margin decision. We show that a more stringent capital requirement is linked with lower equity return, but higher default risk of the bank in the return to domestic retail banking. An increased focus on the political pressure on foreign lending return is linked with higher equity return and default risk of the bank. It is also showed that an increased focus on the political pressure on foreign lending risk decreases the bank's equity return and default risk. We conclude that the return to domestic retail banking may be a relatively stable activity when the political pressure decision impacts only the expected risk of the bank's foreign lending and not the return.     

Financial intermediary's choice of borrowing

This research investigates several dynamic stochastic models of a bank's management problem of the term structures of its assets and liabilities. A bank can either eliminate most of its interest risk with appropriate options, or it can utilize its expertise in its core business and seek extraordinary profits. This research concerns a bank with the latter goal. In this model, the bank seeks to maximize the expected present value of dividend issued subject to the Federal Reserve's regulatory constraint and liquidity constraint. With this model, we find that if the available deposits are not too high and the level of liquid assets is high enough, then it is optimal for a bank to accept all of the available deposits. However, if the level of liquid assets is too low, then a bank should not issue a dividend or to accept any deposits. The properties are still valid even if the bank is not risk neutral.     

How have banks fared following a borrower's financial distress?

This paper is the first to study the impact of a borrower's reorganization filing on its lead lending bank and second lending bank. This study analyzes 96 reorganization filings in Taiwan during the period 1995–2006. It is substantiated that the market's reaction to these filings is not indiscriminate and that the forbearance lending to a reorganization filing borrower suggests the lead bank's little concern for its shareholder wealth.     

A barrier option framework for rescue package designs and bank default risks

Rescue packages adopted to stabilize the banking system are generally divided into three categories: government purchases of distressed assets, government guaranteed debt issuance programs, and direct equity capital injections. Countries afflicted by the recent financial crisis launched general programs in one or two, and even in three different categories. In this paper, we examine that the design of a government rescue package for a distressed bank depends on the expected reduction of the default risk in the bank's equity returns. We find that the bank's default risk is negatively related to distressed loan purchases, and to capital injections, but positively related to guaranteed debt issuance. We also find that the rescue package including all three categories is not guaranteed to increase stability for the rescued bank. Specifically, the combination of distressed loan purchases and capital injections is superior to the package of the three categories in addition to the solo instrument. This suggests that an effective design of a government rescue package for the financial services industry largely depends on its targets.     

The Role of Banks in Monetary Policy Transmission: Empirical Evidence from Russia

This paper focuses on the role of the banking sector in monetary policy transmission in an emerging economy with a rapidly developing financial system. Specifically, we examine whether the central bank's monetary policy stance affects banks' lending behavior. Based on a comprehensive quarterly dataset on all Russian banks from 1Q1999 to 1Q2007, we find evidence for the existence of a bank lending channel in Russia. Contrary to several studies on developed economies, the level of a bank's capitalization matters for the transmission process. Better capitalized banks are less likely to adjust their lending practices following a change in the monetary policy stance.     

Lender's risk incentive and debt concession

This paper demonstrates that a lender's risk incentive may render it difficult to conduct efficient debt renegotiation. When a lending bank has a risk incentive, the bank is not likely to make a debt concession, even though such a concession could resolve inefficiencies caused by a borrower's risk incentive. If the lender refrains from renegotiation the debt, then the borrowing firm chooses a value-decreasing risky project. As a result, the cash flow that the lending bank collects becomes risky, and the wealth of the bank's shareholders increases. The lender's risk incentive thus accelerates the borrower's risk incentive.     

Default probability of a captive credit bank with government capital injections: A capped barrier option approach

Auto dealers use floorplan financing to buy cars from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) with credit typically provided by the OEM's captive credit bank. The purpose of this paper is to explicate and model captive bank lending to dealers and determine the loan-risk default probability in equity returns of the captive bank under government capital injections during a financial crisis. The lending function of the captive bank necessitates modeling equity return as a “capped” barrier option. Numerical exercises show that a decrease in the discount rate of the floorplan financing or an increase in the amount of government capital injection decreases the default probability in equity returns of the captive bank. Floorplan or government assistance enables the captive bank to be much less prone to loan risk, specifically with large-scale dealers which can substantially affect the stability of the banking system.     

Optimal Reserves and Short‐Term Interest Rates in a Model of Bank Runs

A global game framework of bank runs is used to analyse a bank's choice of its reserve level and short‐term interest rate. Higher level of reserves and a lower short‐term interest rate would decrease the probability of bank runs. When the bank's reserve policy is transparent, it will hold excess reserves to discourage withdrawals by patient depositors. This inefficiency of excess reserves increases with the proportion of impatient depositors. When the bank has private information about its reserve level, it will follow a more risky strategy of choosing lower reserves and higher early return than what maximizes depositor welfare and increases the probability of bank runs.     

The Bank Lending Channel and Monetary Policy Rules: Evidence from European Banks

There exist two main channels of the monetary transmission mechanism: the interest rate and the bank lending channel. This paper focuses on the latter, which is based on the central bank’s actions that affect loan supply and real spending. The supply of loans depends on the monetary policy indicator, which, in most studies, is the real short-term interest rate. The question investigated in this paper is how the operation of the bank lending channel changes when this short-term indicator is allowed to be endogenously determined by the target rate the central bank sets through a monetary rule. We examine the effect that a rule has on the bank lending channel in European banking institutions spanning the period 1999–2009. The expectations concerning inflation and output affect the decision of the central bank for the target rate, which, in turn, affect private sector’s expectations —commercial banks— by altering their loan supply.     

The transmission of bank capital requirements and monetary policy to bank lending in Germany

We investigate the transmission of changes in bank capital requirements and monetary policy, and their interaction, on German banks’ corporate loan growth and lending rates. Our results show that increases in capital requirements are associated with an immediate decrease in total domestic and cross‐border bank lending. Changes in the euro area's monetary policy stance are positively related to corporate loan interest rates in general. Regarding the interacting effect of national bank capital requirements and euro area monetary policy, we observe that the transmission of accommodative euro area monetary policy to corporate lending rates can be attenuated by contemporaneous increases in bank capital requirements. Moreover, more strongly capitalized banks increase their loan growth in response to accommodative monetary policy whereas, for weaker banks, increasing capital requirements implies a decrease in their corporate loan growth. Our results confirm a tradeoff between higher capital requirements and accommodating monetary policy originating from banks’ capital constraints.     

Financial intermediation and endogenous risk in the banking sector

The paper revisits the impact of uncertainty on the decision problem of a bank. The bank extends risky loans to private investors and sells deposits to savers at fixed rates. The uncertainty under which deposit/loan-portfolios are chosen by banks is endogenized through an information system that conveys public signals about the return distribution of bank loans. Transparency in the banking sector is defined in terms of the reliability of these signals. We find that higher transparency always raises expected bank profits, but may lead to a higher or lower expected loan volume. Moreover, higher transparency may reduce economic welfare.     

Risk and regret aversions on optimal bank interest margin under capital regulation

This paper examines the bank's optimal loan rate (and thus the bank's interest margin) under more stringent capital regulation when the bank is not only risk-averse but also regret-averse. Risk-averse preferences are characterized by an option-based utility function that includes disutility from the dislike of bank equity risk. Regret-averse preferences feature an option-based utility function that includes disutility from having chosen ex-post suboptimal alternatives. We show that an increase in bank capital requirement results in an increased margin under risk aversion dominating regret aversion, whereas it results in a reduced margin under regret aversion dominating risk aversion. The former holds when risk aversion domination stems from increasing risk-averse preference, but not from decreasing regret-averse preference, while the latter holds when regret aversion domination results from either decreasing risk-averse or increasing regret-averse preference. Risk aversion, as such, makes the bank more prudent and less prone to risk-taking, while regret aversion, as such, makes the bank less prudent and more prone to risk-taking.     

Optimal bank interest margins under capital regulation in a call-option utility framework

This paper examines the optimal bank interest margin under capital regulation when the bank's preference admits an additive call-option representation including both the like of higher equity return and the dislike of higher equity risk. In the call-option utility maximization, an increase in the capital requirement results in an increased amount of loans held by a bank at a reduced margin when loan quality is in distress. We also show that the impact on the bank interest margin from an increase in the capital requirement which ignores the dislike, that we call such behavior call-option equity maximization, leads to significant underestimation. Our results cast doubt on the effectiveness of capital regulation to exert a risk-reducing and return-increasing effect on the bank in particular where loan quality becomes worse, thereby adversely affecting the stability of the banking system.     

Fiscal limits and monetary policy: default vs. inflation

This paper studies the monetary policy trade-off between low inflation and low sovereign risk in the environment where fiscal authorities fail to fully ensure the sustainability of government debt. Building on the Fiscal Theory of Price Level (FTPL) and the Fiscal Theory of Sovereign Risk (FTSR), this paper differs in its baseline assumption about the monetary policy objective, which is neither to rule out defaults regardless of inflation costs (as in FTPL), nor to follow inflation targeting regardless of associated sovereign risk (as in FTSR). Instead, we study the case in which the central bank controls the risky interest rate to minimize the probability of default while ruling out large inflation hikes. We show that this policy regime can mitigate default risks only when the central bank is expected to allow sufficient increases in inflation. When agents believe that the central bank's tolerance toward inflation hikes has increased, equilibrium risk premium goes down, suggesting that information concerning changes in the central bank's preferences over inflation directly impacts default risks.     

Asymmetric quantile analysis of the Swedish mortgage price discovery process

Based on Swedish banking data we discover robust and significantly positive Asymmetric Price Transmission (APT) effects over all analysed regression quantiles of our mortgage interest rates, with even larger positive APT for the higher percentiles. The analysis was enabled through unique access to a Swedish bank's (SEB) own records of their true borrowing costs. Our central contribution is that there is a higher propensity for the bank to rapidly increase its mortgage interest rates for customers following an increase in its borrowing costs, compared with the propensity for the bank to decrease its customers’ mortgage rates subsequent to a corresponding borrowing cost decrease.     

Cyclical behavior of the financial stability of eurozone commercial banks

In light of the financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis, we investigate the cyclical behavior of the financial stability of banks of the Eurozone, using an unbalanced dynamic panel of 722 commercial banks covering the period 1999–2013, and the generalized method of moments system. We find a negative relationship between business cycle and bank risk-taking, indicating that financial stability is procyclical. In addition, the study shows that lending activity increases risk-taking while rising capital requirements boost financial stability. Moreover, our findings suggest positive co-movements between the business cycle and lending, compared to bank's capital, whereby the procyclicality of lending and bank capital have negative effects on the financial stability of commercial banks in the Eurozone. We notice then that the cyclical behavior of commercial banks, in terms of capital requirements and lending activities, depends on their size. Therefore, lending and capital of smaller banks are procyclical while lending and capital of larger banks are countercyclical. Finally, we find the Troika institutions’ bailouts programs significantly impacted banking stability in the Eurozone.     

The bank lending channel of unconventional monetary policy: The impact of the VLTROs on credit supply in Spain

We assess the impact on the credit supply to non-financial corporations of the two very long term refinancing operations (VLTROs) conducted by the Eurosystem in December 2011 and February 2012 for the case of Spain. To do so we use bank–firm level information from a sample of more than one million lending relationships during two years. Our methodology tackles three main identification challenges: (i) how to disentangle credit supply from demand; (ii) the non-random assignment of firms to banks; (iii) the endogeneity of the VLTRO bids, as banks with more deteriorated funding conditions were more likely both to ask for a large amount of funds and to restrain credit supply. Our findings suggest that the VLTROs had a positive moderate-sized effect on the supply of bank credit to firms. We also find that the effect was greater for illiquid banks and that it was driven by credit to SMEs, as there was no impact on loans to large firms. By contrast, strong firm–bank relationships were less sensitive to the positive liquidity shock caused by the VLTROs, which is consistent with the studies that find that relationship lending is a more stable source of credit than transaction lending. Finally, the VLTROs had no impact on either the degree of loan collateralisation or the probability of making loans to new borrowers, while they decreased the probability of renewing old ones, which suggests that those funds were not used for loan “evergreening”.