Assessing banks’ resilience: A complementary approach to stress testing using fair values from banks’ financial statements

For more than a decade, supervisory banking authorities in Europe and the United States have sought to assess the resilience of banks to adverse economic episodes to safeguard the financial system's stability. They rely on regulatory capital measures like Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) relative to risk-weighted assets in the aftermath of potential economic crises. We propose a new measure of banks' resilience based on financial statements. The fair value margin (FVM) is estimated as the difference between the fair value of assets and the book value of liabilities, scaled by the book value of equity. We find that FVM is positively associated with the surplus or shortfall of CET1 resulting from the stress testing results from 2014, 2016 and 2018. To corroborate the relevance of FVM for supervisory authorities, we compare the ability of the loan component of FVM to predict future credit losses with the capital surplus/shortfall metric derived from the stress test. The findings indicate that the fair value of loans predicts net charge-offs better than stress test outcomes. Therefore, we suggest that FVM could be used as a readily available and relatively low-cost tool to assess bank resilience, thus complementing the stress test exercises.     

The effect of the Federal Reserve’s lending facility on PPP lending by commercial banks

We investigate whether the Federal Reserve’s Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility (PPPLF) boosted commercial bank Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) lending. To determine whether this facility had a causal effect, we use pre-existing familiarity with the Federal Reserve’s discount window as an instrumental variable. We show that the PPPLF materially bolstered bank PPP lending and provided a meaningful funding backstop for banks that did not use the facility. Our paper is one of the first to quantitatively illustrate the effectiveness of a central bank facility as a funding backstop.     

The effect of TARP on lending: Evidence from the lead bank’s share in syndicated loans

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We investigate the effect of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on the shares of lead banks in syndicated loans by using quarterly data for the...     

TARP announcement,bank health,and borrowers’ credit risk

Theory suggests that unhealthy banks exhibit more pronounced flight-to-quality behavior during financial crises and, hence, the infusion of capital through unhealthy banks is less effective in relieving the liquidity shocks of vulnerable borrowers. We test these predictions by investigating how the financial health of leading US banks influenced their borrowers’ credit risk surrounding the announcement of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Changes in borrower credit risk, measured by credit default swap (CDS) spreads, should reflect the expected relief from liquidity shocks and other benefits of rescuing banks, such as maintaining the existing lending relationships. Consistent with the theory, prior to the TARP capital infusions, unhealthy banks’ borrowers with high leverage experienced a greater increase in their credit risk relative to similar healthy banks’ borrowers. Following the event, the CDS market anticipated less liquidity relief to these vulnerable unhealthy banks’ borrowers, but more liquidity relief to the vulnerable healthy banks’ borrowers.     

Central banks’ preferences and banking sector vulnerability

According to “Schwartz's conventional wisdom” and what has been called “divine coincidence”, price stability should imply macroeconomic and financial stability. However, in light of the global financial crisis, with monetary policy focused on price stability, scholars have held that banking and financial risks were largely unaddressed. According to this alternative view, the belief in divine coincidence turns out to be benign neglect. The objective of this paper is to test Schwartz's hypothesis against the benign neglect hypothesis. The priority assigned to the inflation goal is proxied by the central banks’ conservatism (CBC) index proposed by Levieuge and Lucotte (2014), here extended to a large sample of 73 countries from 1980 to 2012. Banking sector vulnerability is measured by six alternative indicators that are frequently employed in the literature on early warning systems. Our results indicate that differences in monetary policy preferences robustly explain cross-country differences in banking vulnerability and validate the benign neglect hypothesis, in that a higher level of CBC implies a more vulnerable banking sector.     

The new Capital Accord and banks’ lending decisions

Capital requirements (‘pillar one’ of the new Capital Accord) rising with the increase in borrowers’ PDs were thought as being likely: (i) to have a serious impact on the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (usually riskier than large corporates) and (ii) to increase the procyclicality of the supply of credit.The aim of this paper is to provide an empirical evaluation of the possible impact of the new Accord proposals on the lending policies of Italian banks. We compare the interest rate charged to a large set of Italian firms with the cost brought about by the change in the calculation of capital requirements. Since the two variables move together in response to an increase in borrowers’ PDs, we conclude that the new regulatory approach to measuring capital adequacy appears consistent with banks’ own risk evaluations. This result is supported by a ‘stress testing’ exercise: the relationship also holds in a distressed economic scenario, which replicates the financial conditions of the Italian corporate sector in the 1993–1994 recession.     

Managerial labor mobility and banks’ financial reporting quality

This paper explores the relationship between managers’ labor mobility and the financial reporting quality of banks. Using the state-level adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) as an exogenous shock discouraging labor mobility, we show that adoption of the IDD is associated with a decline in financial reporting quality, as measured by discretionary loan loss provisions. The effect is larger for banks with managers who have limited outside job opportunities and smaller for banks with tight regulatory oversight. Our results support the view from the career concern hypothesis that bank managers facing restrictions on mobility have greater incentives to engage in discretionary accounting.     

Bank–SMEs relationships and banks’ risk-adjusted profitability

This research investigates how SME performance, the typology of loans and the length and scope of relationships between small banks and SMEs affect the margin adjusted for the risk that each customer generates. After analysing 4285 firm-year observations from Finnish banks, the quality of a SME’s performance is found to be the major factor in explaining the risk-adjusted profitability of banks. However, the length and scope of a relationship and the loan dimensions also play an important role.     

Sukuk market development and Islamic banks’ capital ratios

This paper investigates the impact of Sukuk market development on Islamic banks’ capital ratios using a sample comprising 230 Islamic banks spanning the period 2005–2014. We characterize Islamic bank capital along multiple dimensions, namely: capital adequacy ratio, Tier 1 capital ratio, and capital-to-total assets ratio. We employ both the Prais-Winston technique and the system GMM estimator to tackle potential omitted variable bias, endogeneity, and simultaneity issues. The evidence shows that Sukuk market development has had a negative effect on capital ratios of Islamic banks. We argue that the development of Sukuk markets may have stimulated the competition between Islamic Banks, inducing them to hold lower capital ratios. Our results also show that trade openness and bank liquidity are positively and significantly related to capital ratios, while bank size and loan loss reserve ratio are negatively and significantly related to capital ratios, as expected.     

German banks’ behavior in the low interest rate environment

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - Using data from a quantitative survey of German banks at three points in time (2015, 2017 and 2019), we analyze the impact of changes in the interest...     

Factors affecting customers’ continued intentions to use Islamic banks

No study has concurrently verified the religious motives and attitudes that affected the customers’ continued intentions to use Islamic banks along with the importance of other factors and attributes associated with conventional banking services. This study examines factors affecting customers’ attitudes toward Islamic banks based on data obtained from interview surveys conducted in Jordan. The findings show that customers’ religious motives, their evaluations of a bank's compliance with Islamic law as an indication of the customers’ religious attitudes toward Islamic banks, and the ease of access to credit had a positive effect on the customers’ intentions to continue using Islamic banks. More specifically, the findings suggest that customers who continuously transact with Islamic banks more strongly emphasize religious attitudes, rather than credit constraints (such as the degree of access to credit) and religious motives. This study further reveals that religious attitudes, rather than mere religious motives, were the primary criterion for the customers’ continued intent to use Islamic banks, especially when considering the strong effect of their religious attitudes toward Islamic banks.

     

Quantifying the components of the banks’ net interest margin

Using unique data sets on German banks, we decompose their net interest margin and quantify the different components by estimating the costs of the various functions they perform. We investigate three major functions: liquidity and payment management for customers, bearing credit risk, and term transformation. For 2013, the costs of liquidity and payment management correspond, in the median, to 47% of the net interest margin, with bearing of credit risk and earnings from term transformation accounting for 12 and 37%, respectively.     

An analysis of the consistency of banks’ internal ratings

Internal ratings-based models are used for a variety of important bank and regulatory decisions. Thus, model risk – the potential for different models to provide different probability-of-default (PD) estimates – is of crucial importance. Using a comprehensive German credit registry dataset from 40 banks and 17,000 corporate borrowers from 2008–2012, we assess the consistency of internal PD estimates across banks. We find three main results. First, the variability of PD estimates for the same borrower across banks is large. Second, bank fixed effects explain 5% of the variation in PD estimates across banks, while 95% of the variation is idiosyncratic. For the 10 largest banks in our sample, reported regulatory capital ratios would change by a maximum of ±10%, equivalent to approximately 1 percentage point, when using average risk weights from all banks instead of risk weights based on banks’ individual PD estimates. Third, we explore various bank characteristics that explain the size of bank fixed effects.     

The effect of banks’ financial reporting on syndicated-loan structures

We explore how an accounting measure of information asymmetry between lead and participating lenders influences syndication structures by examining whether lead lenders’ commercial and industrial (C&I) loan-loss provision validity affects the fraction of loans they retain. We first conduct multiple tests showing that C&I provision validity reflects banks’ underlying screening and monitoring effectiveness. We then find lead lenders’ loan share decreases with C&I provision validity, but not with non-C&I provision validity. Consistent with an information effect, we further find this association is attenuated by (i) alternative information sources about the borrowers and (ii) previous lead/participant relationships and participant/borrower relationships.     

State ownership and banks’ information rents: Evidence from China

In a lending relationship, a bank with an information advantage regarding its client tends to hold up the borrower and charge higher interest rates. We conjecture that state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with worse information asymmetry, are subject to greater information rents. State-owned banks place less emphasis on information production and hence extract lower rents compared to profit-maximizing private banks. We use the decline of loan interest rates around the borrowers’ equity initial public offerings (IPOs) as the proxy of banks’ information rents. We find SOEs in China experience larger declines in loan interest rates around their IPOs; the central government-controlled Big Four banks exhibit smaller declines in rates they charge, and their rate declines concentrate on loans made to SOEs.     

Do customers patronize Islamic banks for Shari’a compliance?

The purpose of this article is to investigate whether Islamic bank customers view Shari’a compliance and conventional banking services as two distinct and different sets of bank patronage factors and, if so, to find the relative importance of each. The article is based on the primary data collected from 357 Islamic bank customers in Pakistan. The analytical tools used in this piece of research are factor analysis and mean ranking. A total of six variables were fed into the factor analysis, which resulted in the identification of two factors accounting for about 76 per cent of the total variance in the variables. The resulting factors were then analysed through mean ranking to investigate them for the relative importance of each factor. The findings reveal that customers consider Shari’a compliance and conventional banking services as two distinct and different packages of bank patronization factors. It is further revealed that conventional banking services are rather more important than Shari’a compliance. The article has important implications for Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) in Pakistan. On the one hand, it signifies the importance of Shari’a compliance as an additional discrete factor for customers’ bank-selection decision, and on the other, it highlights the importance of customers’ traditional banking needs. In order to be sustainable, IFIs must be competitive with the conventional banking industry in the first place and stay Shari’a compliant in the second place for obtaining marginal competitive edge.     

The determinants of U.S. banks’ international activities

This paper develops a model and structural dynamic estimation of bank behavior to map the relationship between U.S. banks’ choices of foreign banking activities, and bank and foreign market traits. This estimation framework is applied to a unique bank-level dataset compiled from regulatory sources, covering U.S. banks’ foreign activities in 83 host markets over the 2003–2013 period. Bank traits are better able to explain the evolving patterns of foreign banking than host market characteristics. After controlling for these traits, the post-financial crisis period shows a structural shift away from cross-border claims towards foreign affiliate activities. Structural estimates of foreign market entry costs and regulatory attitudes towards risk are derived. Simulation exercises confirm the strong impact of banks’ and regulators’ risk stance on bank profits and portfolio composition.     

U.S. banks’ IPOs and political money contributions

This study analyses the effect of political money contributions on U.S. banks’ IPOs. We employ unbalanced panel data of 367 U.S. banks’ IPOs for the period January 1998 to December 2019. Our findings reveal that investors perceive Political Money Contributions (PMC) by U.S. banks as a proxy for political reach and connectedness. We document an inverse relationship between total PMC and the level of underpricing, which implies that both lobbying and PAC expenditure pay off on issue day as donors incur less underpricing. Initial returns decrease with PAC contributions to House of Representatives candidates, whereas the returns relate to the partisan identity of the candidates receiving PAC contributions. We document that those individual contributions by directors bring significant benefits to the IPO banks. Finally, we show that the political contributions of board members, particularly those of CEOs and founders, are associated with better returns in the long term.