Rethinking bank shareholder equity: The case of Deutsche Bank

We introduce and apply an innovative accounting approach to analyse the equity position of a European systemically important financial institution, Deutsche Bank, between 2001 and 2015. According to our findings, the actual contribution by shareholders to bank equity capital was limited, while shareholder payout policies, including share buybacks and trading on its own shares, were both material. These findings raise concerns on the actual capacity by shareholder equity to assure protection against (residual) risk and loss absorption. Customer and investor protections appear to lay with bank entity equity dynamics. These findings have implications for bank financial sustainability and resilience, company capital maintenance, and regulatory capital requirements. Further developments based upon this innovative methodology may improve on existing prudential and accounting regulations.     

Bank Capital Regulation of Trading Portfolios: An Assessment of the Basel Framework

In setting minimum capital requirements for trading portfolios, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (1996, 2011a, 2013) initially used Value‐at‐Risk (VaR), then both VaR and stressed VaR (SVaR), and most recently, stressed Conditional VaR (SCVaR). Accordingly, we examine the use of SCVaR to measure risk and set these requirements. Assuming elliptically distributed asset returns, we show that portfolios on the mean‐SCVaR frontier generally lie away from the mean‐variance (M‐V) frontier. In a plausible numerical example, we find that such portfolios tend to have considerably higher ratios of risk (measured by, e.g., standard deviation) to minimum capital requirement than those of portfolios on the M‐V frontier. Also, we find that requirements based on SCVaR are smaller than those based on both VaR and SVaR but exceed those based on just VaR. Finally, we find that requirements based on SCVaR are less procyclical than those based on either VaR or both VaR and SVaR. Overall, our paper suggests that the use of SCVaR to measure risk and set requirements is not a panacea.     

新巴塞尔协议下我国国有银行资本充足率问题及对策研究

新巴塞尔协议代表着对国际商业银行业监管方向和趋势 ,与 1988年巴塞尔协议相比 ,新协议内容更广泛 ,更复杂。它的主要内容包括最低资本要求、资本充足性监管和市场约束。本文仅就新巴塞尔协议最低资本要求问题分析我国国有银行业的不足以及应该采取的措施 ,从而确保我国 2 0 0 7年顺利实施新巴塞尔协议。     

Basel regulations and banks’ efficiency: The case of the Philippines

Using stochastic frontier analysis, this paper has examined the impact of Basel II on the cost efficiency of Philippine commercial banks from 2001 to 2011. The overall mean cost efficiency estimate is 0.75, indicating substantial inefficiencies in the banks averaging to 25% of total costs. Findings show that higher capital requirement tends to improve the cost efficiency but more powerful supervisors can adversely affect the efficiency of the banks. The other potential correlates that may help explain the efficiency of the banks are risk and asset quality and bank-specific variables. From a policy perspective, this study is informative to policymakers on the general direction in which to proceed with reforms (i.e., maintain higher capital requirements, curtail powerful supervisors, and enhance private monitoring) and in identifying factors that could contribute to banks’ efficiency especially in light of the newly implemented Basel III in the country. In effect, this paper also assesses the readiness of the banks toward the implementation of Basel III.     

Why is credit-to-GDP a good measure for setting countercyclical capital buffers?

We examine banks’ loan losses in Europe in 1982–2012 using a nonlinear three-factor model that takes into account output growth, real interest rate, and the ratio of private credit to GDP relative to its trend (i.e., “excessive indebtedness”). We find that a drop in output has an intensified impact on loan losses if the private sector is excessively indebted. Because increased bank credit risk should be matched with higher bank capital, the result motivates the Basel III's countercyclical capital buffers as a function of private indebtedness relative to its trend. The result also helps to explain differences in the amount of loan losses in different recessions across time and across countries. The model also indicates that low interest rates during the recent recession have clearly mitigated loan losses.     

A Critical Assessment of Basel III and its Implications on the Mauritian Banking Sector

This paper probes into the application of Basel III in Mauritius. Findings show that although Mauritian banks are well-capitalized and carry excess liquidity, they will have to restructure their balance sheets by incorporating highly liquid assets such as government securities. While Basel III will foster greater financial stability, this will translate into lower supply of credit, higher cost of credit and lower returns with potential strains on SME lending. Similarly, Bank of Mauritius’s ability to control credit growth will be hindered because banks’ existing leverage ratios are already higher than the stipulated minimum leverage ratio of 3%. To harness the full benefits of the reforms, additional measures tailored to the specificities of the Mauritian economy will be needed. Other challenges prevail like establishing robust data management, risk methodologies, reporting systems and IT architecture as well as identifying the timing and the size of the Countercyclical Capital Buffer. Local banks anticipate Basel IV in the coming years as a refined tool.     

The Border as a Resource in the Global Urban Space: A Contribution to the Cross‐Border Metropolis Hypothesis

In a globalized urban world, cross‐border metropolises represent a spatial configuration emblematic of the interplay between the space of flows and the space of places. The multiplicity of contexts and processes at work can complicate the identification of what constitutes the singularity of the concept. In order to contribute to these reflections the present article hypothesizes that the specificity of cross‐border metropolises does not fundamentally stem from the form they take or the nature of the cross‐border integration at work, but rather from the particular role played by national borders in their formation. Opening up borders offers new opportunities for border cities and urban border regions to reinforce their positions at the heart of global economic networks, and to affirm their autonomy as cross‐border regional entities. Without minimizing the possible obstructive effects of borders, it is helpful to recognize that they might also represent a resource in the composition of cross‐border metropolitan regions.     

目标导向的宏观审慎监管体系构建——巴塞尔协议Ⅲ内容及其影响

2007年爆发的金融危机动摇了巴塞尔委员会银行业监管原有的基本理念,银行业监管由注重单个机构的微观审慎监管开始,向更注重整个银行业体系稳定的宏观审慎监管转变,银行业监管的手段也将随之发生变化,资本充足监管、逆周期监管、流动性风险监管、杠杆比率监管是宏观审慎监管体系的基本内容。新监管体系与会计信息之间的关系更加密切,监管理念的变化对未来银行业经营将产生重大影响,但是新资本协议存在的缺陷需要在具体实施中改进。     

商业银行流动性缺口管理的改进方法及实证分析

本文在中国当前使用的流动性缺口管理方法的基础上,结合巴塞尔委员会《流动性风险计量、标准和监测的国际框架(征求意见稿)》(2009),给出关于流动性风险计量的改进方法。改进方法使用了高质量流动资产、净流动性缺口和净流动性缺口占总资产的比率三个指标,克服了传统流动性缺口管理没有充分考虑资产质量和资产流动性特征等缺点,更好地反映商业银行的流动性风险。通过实证分析先对国内3家银行2006~2009年年报数据进行比较,然后对国内10家银行2009年年报数据进行比较,进一步验证了改进方法的优越性。     

Bank funding structures and risk: Evidence from the global financial crisis

This paper analyzes the evolution of bank funding structures in the run up to the global financial crisis and studies the implications for financial stability, exploiting a bank-level dataset that covers about 11,000 banks in the U.S. and Europe during 2001–09. The results show that banks with weaker structural liquidity and higher leverage in the pre-crisis period were more likely to fail afterward. The likelihood of bank failure also increases with pre-crisis bank risk-taking. In the cross-section, the smaller domestically-oriented banks were relatively more vulnerable to liquidity risk, while the large cross-border (Global) banks were more vulnerable to solvency risk due to excessive leverage. In fact, a 3.5 percentage point increase in the pre-crisis capital buffers of Global banks would have caused a 48 percentage point in their probability of failure during the crisis. The results support the proposed Basel III regulations on structural liquidity and leverage, but suggest that emphasis should be placed on the latter, particularly for the systemically-important institutions. Macroeconomic and monetary conditions are also shown to be related with the likelihood of bank failure, providing a case for the introduction of a macro-prudential approach to banking regulation.