Tag: Basel III

APRA Looking At Capital Ratios For Mortgages

Wayne Byres speech “Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat: Fortune Favours the strong”, as Chairman of APRA, at the AFR Banking & Wealth Summit, makes two significant points.

First, there are elevated risks in the residential lending sector (even after the recent tactical announcements on interest only loans). Banks remain  highly leveraged businesses.

Second, despite the delays from Basel, APRA will consult this year on potential changes to the capital ratios, reflecting the Australian Banks’ focus on mortgage lending and the need to be “unquestionably strong”.

A further indication that mortgage costs will continue to rise!

In the past few days, there has been a great deal of attention given to our recent announcement on additional measures to strengthen one particular part of the financial system: the residential mortgage lending market. These measures build on the steps we have taken over the past two years to bolster loan underwriting practices and moderate investor lending, in an environment that we considered to be one of heightened risk.

Those measures had a positive impact (Chart 1), but at the same time the risk environment certainly hasn’t moderated:

  • house prices remain high;
  • household income growth remains subdued;
  • the already high ratio of household debt to income has got higher;
  • the already low official cash rate has got lower (although not all of this reduction has flowed to borrowers, particularly investors; and
  • competitive pressures haven’t diminished.

It’s important to be clear that our goal in implementing the additional measures we announced on Friday is not to determine house prices. Housing prices are not within the control, nor the mandate, of the prudential regulator. Nor, as the Reserve Bank Governor said last night, can prudential measures address underlying supply-demand issues within the housing market. Rather, our role in the current environment is to promote a higher-than-normal degree of prudence – definitely by lenders and, ideally, also borrowers – in both credit decisions and balance sheet strength. On this occasion, we have focussed on interest-only lending to complement our earlier measures. Although there are perfectly legitimate reasons why individual borrowers might prefer an interest-only loan, in aggregate the level of interest-only lending creates additional vulnerabilities and we came to the view some additional moderation in this area was warranted.

We chose not to lower the investor lending growth benchmark at this point in time, given the need to accommodate the increasing supply of housing in the construction pipeline. However, limitations on the volume of new interest-only lending will impact investors more acutely than owner-occupiers, given that around two-thirds of lending to investors is on an interest-only basis. Furthermore, although the 12-month annual growth rate for investor lending is currently below the 10 per cent benchmark, the run rate in more recent months has been closer to (if not a little above) 10 per cent on an annualised basis. Therefore, even with the benchmark unchanged, lenders are still likely to have to tighten their lending practices and slow lending from that in recent months to ensure they remain comfortably below the desired level.

This latest step is a tactical response to current market conditions – we can and will do more (or less) as conditions evolve. We also developing a more strategic response that recognises that, in the Australian banking system, housing lending risks and capital adequacy are far from independent issues.

The banking system certainly has higher capital adequacy ratios than it used to. But overall leverage has not materially declined. The proportion of equity that is funding banking system assets has improved only modestly, from a touch under 6 per cent a decade ago to just on 6½ per cent at the end of 2016. Notwithstanding the extra capital that new regulation has required, banking remains a highly leveraged business.

Unquestionably strong

One way to think about our objective in establishing ‘unquestionably strong’ capital requirements is that we should be able to assert, with credibility, that the banking system can withstand reasonably foreseeable adversity and continue to provide its core function of financial intermediation for the Australian community.

Unfortunately, there is no universal measure of financial strength that provides a clear cut answer to that test. So we need to be able to look at this question through multiple lenses. In thinking about the concept of ‘unquestionably strong’, there are three basic ways to do that:

  • relative measures: the FSI adopted a relative approach in suggesting that unquestionably strong regulatory capital ratios would be positioned in the top quartile of international peers. We have said on a number of occasions that we do not intend to tie ourselves mechanically to some particular percentile, but top quartile positioning is a useful sense check which we can certainly use to guide our policy-making.
  • alternative measures: regulators do not have exclusive domain over measures of financial strength. There are a range of alternative measures, such as those used by rating agencies, which can be used to benchmark Australian banks. Again, we do not intend to tie ourselves too closely to these measures, but it would be difficult to argue the banking system is unquestionably strong if alternative measures of capital strength, particularly those that are influential in investment decision-making, were to suggest something to the contrary.
  • absolute measures: relative and alternative measures are useful guides, but the real test for a bank to claim it is unquestionably strong is whether it can comfortably survive extreme but plausible adversity. So stress testing, which doesn’t rely on relativities with other banks, or competing measures of strength, provides another useful guide for us.
    Using multiple measures will provide useful insights on the banking system’s strength, but unfortunately will be unlikely to give us a single ‘right’ answer. At best it will provide a range for possible calibration which would reasonably meet our objective that, whichever lens you look through, we can credibly claim to have capital standards that produce an unquestionably strong banking system. We will still need to exercise judgement, taking account of other dimensions of risk within the system – both quantitative (such as liquidity and funding) and qualitative (such as risk management and risk culture within banks, and the strengths of the statutory framework and crisis management powers on which the stability of the system is built). Inevitably, some will argue the calibration should be higher, and others think it too high, but at the very least our logic and rationale should be transparent, and we can readily explain how our decisions are consistent with the FSI’s intent.

As things stand today, our plan is to issue an information paper around the middle of the year, which will set out how we view the banking system through the various lenses that I have just mentioned, the extent of further strengthening required, and the timeframe over which that can be achieved in an orderly manner.

Beyond establishing the aggregate level of capital, we will need to follow that up with consultation on how the regulatory framework should allocate that capital across the different types of risk exposure. Some of those changes will flow from the inevitable direction of the work in Basel that I referred to earlier: this will include, for example, greater limitations on the use of internal credit risk models, and the inevitable removal of operational risk models. These changes will primarily impact the larger banks.

But, coming back to my starting point, probably the biggest issue we will need to resolve in ensuring capital is appropriately allocated is whether and how we adjust the risk weights for housing-related exposures. Our announcement last week reflected a tactical response to current conditions in the housing market. We will continue to refine these sorts of measures as long as they are needed. But a longer term and more strategic response will involve a review, during the course of our work on ‘unquestionably strong’, of the relative and absolute capital requirements for housing exposures. That should not be taken to imply that there will be a dramatic increase in capital requirements for housing lending: APRA has always imposed capital requirements for housing exposures that are well above international minimum standards, so we do not start with glaring deficiencies. By anyone’s standard, however, we have a banking system that has a notable concentration in housing. It is therefore important we give that issue particular attention as we think about how to put the concept of ‘unquestionably strong’ into practice.

 

Basel Committee’s Adverse Assessment of G-SIBs Risk-Reporting Practices Is Credit Negative

Moody’s says last Tuesday, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision reported that most global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) have an unsatisfactory level of compliance with the Basel Committee’s principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting.

This assessment is credit negative for G-SIBs because it signals that most still do not have the appropriate quality of risk management practices and decision-making processes that the Basel Committee identified as important following the 2007-09 global financial crisis. The Basel Committee indicated that it is critical for banks and their supervisors to make the full and timely implementation of its principles a priority.

The Basel Committee cited a wide range of examples in which G-SIBs failed to meet the principles. These examples include the following:

  • A lack of structured policies and frameworks to consistently assess and report risk data aggregation and risk reporting implementation activities to the board and senior management.
  • Risk data aggregation and risk reporting policies not approved or fully developed across the global organization.
  • Incomplete IT infrastructure projects aimed at improving data quality and controls by unifying disparate or legacy IT systems
  • Various data quality control deficiencies in areas such as reconciliation, validation checks and data quality standards.
  • Treating implementation of the principles as a onetime compliance exercise rather than a dynamic and ongoing process.
  • Incomplete integration and implementation of bank-wide data architecture and frameworks (e.g., data taxonomies, data dictionaries and risk data policies).
  • An overreliance on manual processes and interventions to produce risk reports, which risk inhibiting a G-SIB’s ability to produce reports quickly in crisis situations.
  • Difficulties in executing and managing complex and large-scale IT and data infrastructure projects, such as resources and funding issues and deficiencies in project management.
  • Static risk management reporting frameworks that do not take full account of strategic planning decisions such as risks pertaining to merger and acquisition activities.
  • An inability to monitor emerging trends through forward-looking forecasts and stress tests.

According to the Basel Committee, half of the G-SIBs were materially non-compliant with, or had not implemented, the principle for the design, building and maintenance of a data architecture and IT infrastructure that fully supports risk data aggregation capabilities and risk-reporting practices. More than half of the G-SIBs involved in the Basel Committee’s assessment were largely or fully compliant with each of the other principles. The report provides details of compliance among the G-SIBs but does not identify specific compliance details of each G-SIB.

The Basel Committee’s report focused on 30 global banks from around the world that were designated as G-SIBs in 2011 or 2012 and which were subject to a January 2016 implementation deadline.

The key challenges that G-SIBs faced when implementing the principles were technical issues and problems determining materiality thresholds. Only one G-SIB achieved full compliance with all principles by the January 2016 deadline, and the committee expected another to have achieved full compliance by the report’s publication date last Tuesday. The Basel Committee expects 24 G-SIBs to achieve full compliance by the end of 2018, while it does not expect four to be fully compliant until a later date.

Supervisors plan to communicate details of the assessment results to G-SIBs’ boards of directors and senior management by June 2017. Supervisory measures that are available include requests for specific remediation action plans and deadlines, independent reviews, increasing supervisory intensity, imposing capital add-ons and restricting business activities.

Enhancements to the Basel Pillar 3 Disclosure Framework Released

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has issued Pillar 3 disclosure requirements – consolidated and enhanced framework. This standard represents the second phase of the Committee’s review of the Pillar 3 disclosure framework and builds on the revisions to the Pillar 3 disclosure published by the Committee in January 2015.

The Pillar 3 disclosure framework seeks to promote market discipline through regulatory disclosure requirements. The enhancements in the standard contain three main elements:

  • Consolidation of all existing BCBS disclosure requirements into the Pillar 3 framework – These disclosure requirements cover the composition of capital, the leverage ratio, the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR), the indicators for determining globally systemically important banks (G-SIBs), the countercyclical capital buffer, interest rate risk in the banking book and remuneration.
  • Two enhancements to the Pillar 3 framework – This standard introduces a “dashboard” of a bank’s key prudential metrics which will provide users of Pillar 3 data with an overview of a bank’s prudential position, and a new disclosure requirement for those banks which record prudent valuation adjustments (PVAs) to provide users with a granular breakdown of how a bank’s PVAs are calculated.
  • Revisions and additions to the Pillar 3 standard arising from ongoing reforms to the regulatory policy framework – This standard includes new disclosure requirements in respect of the total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) regime for G-SIBs issued in November 2015, and revised disclosure requirements for market risk arising from the revised market risk framework published by the Committee in January 2016.

Note that this standard does not include disclosure requirements arising from the Committee’s ongoing finalisation of the Basel III reforms. Disclosure requirements agreed by the Committee following the issuance of this standard will be included within the scope of the third phase of the review of the Pillar 3 framework.

The standard incorporates feedback from Pillar 3 preparers and users collected during the public consultation conducted in March 2016. Clarifications have been made relating to the disclosure requirements, in particular those pertaining to TLAC.

The implementation date for each of the disclosure requirements is set out in the standard. In general, the implementation date for existing disclosure requirements consolidated under the standard will be end-2017. For disclosure requirements which are new and/or depend on the implementation of another policy framework, the implementation date has been aligned with the implementation date of that framework

RBNZ Announces Banking Capital Review

The New Zealand Reserve Bank has announced a review on Bank Capital.

They plan to release a high level Issues Paper in April, outlining the areas of the capital framework that the Reserve Bank intends to examine, followed by more detailed consultation papers. They will be seeking stakeholders’ views in three broad areas: what sorts of capital instruments should qualify (the numerator); how risk exposures should be measured (the denominator); and the minimum capital ratios and buffers.

The Issues Paper will request stakeholders’ initial views on the areas we intend to cover and issues that might warrant particular attention. Further consultation documents with options for changes to the framework and recommended policy positions will be targeted for the third quarter. They plan to conclude the Review by the first quarter of 2018.

The Purpose of the Review

The aim of the Capital Review is to identify the most appropriate regulatory framework for setting capital requirements for New Zealand banks. Consistent with the Reserve Bank’s legislative purposes, minimum capital requirements should promote the maintenance of a sound and efficient financial system.  In broad terms, higher levels of capital will improve the soundness of the financial system as the likelihood of bank failures is reduced and the potential impact of credit cycles is moderated.

However, the capital regime may reduce the efficiency of financial intermediation if ratios are pushed too high or standards are made overly complex. Capital is a more expensive form of funding for the banks and so higher capital ratios can potentially increase the overall cost of funding the system as well as improving its soundness.

Our aim is to agree a capital regime that ensures a very high level of confidence in the solvency of the banking system, while avoiding unnecessary economic inefficiency.

In pursuing this objective, the Capital Review will look at the three key components of the regulatory capital regime:

  • The definition of eligible capital instruments
  • The measurement of risk, in particular the risk weights attached to credit exposures
  • The minimum capital ratios and buffers

These three factors are interdependent and the links between them must be carefully considered. The calibration of the capital ratios needs to be set in the context of the risk weights applying to exposures as well as the capacity of eligible capital instruments to absorb losses. Also, the role of capital buffers versus hard minimum requirements needs to be considered.

The Capital Review will examine how well the Reserve Bank’s current framework operates and consider potential improvements. The Reserve Bank will consult the banks and the public on its findings and on any proposed changes to the capital framework.

Outcomes of the Review will be heavily influenced by the international regulatory context, the risk characteristics of the New Zealand system and the Reserve Bank’s regulatory approach.

New Zealand domestic context

The Capital Review will assess how our future capital framework might be shaped by domestic considerations. These relate to New Zealand’s risk profile, the shape of our financial system and also our regulatory approach.

New Zealand’s exports are concentrated in a small number of commodity-based sectors which can be subject to considerable price volatility. Bank exposures to commodity export industries are a key risk in the domestic system. Residential mortgage exposures are also a major source of risk given the system’s heavy exposure to housing and the capacity for house prices to become very stretched – as at present.

New Zealand is a net debtor country, having run current account deficits continuously over the past 40 years. About half of the country’s gross external debt is issued by the New Zealand banking system which then on-lends to businesses and households.  This reliance on external funding is an important vulnerability of the New Zealand system, as starkly demonstrated during the GFC. While liquidity buffers must be the first line of defence against funding market disruptions, a strongly capitalised system also helps to mitigate the risk of reduced market access.

New Zealand’s financial system is less diversified relative to peer countries. Financial intermediation is concentrated in a few large institutions and capital markets play a relatively minor role.

Rating agency risk assessments of the large New Zealand banks is heavily influenced by expectations of support from the Australian parent banks. Under the S&P regime, this factor lifts the ratings of the large New Zealand banks by an average of 4 notches from BBB+ on a standalone basis, to AA- , the rating applied to the Australian parents. While the implicit support of the parent banks is valuable for the New Zealand system, it is also a vulnerability. For example, in recent times the Australian parent banks have been on negative outlook and, separately, APRA has placed restrictions on the ability of the parent banks to give credit support to their international subsidiaries. Should implicit parental support be eroded, it is important that our banks be seen as strong on a standalone basis in order to maintain their international standing.

The Capital Review will draw on the emerging international literature on optimal capital and include an assessment of optimal capital that takes account of New Zealand-specific characteristics. The final calibration of capital requirements will also take account of the results and insights from bank stress-testing and other analytical work we are undertaking in support of the Capital Review.

Proposed UK Bank Capital Changes Are Credit Negative

From Moody’s.

Last Friday, the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) proposed a more flexible approach to determining Pillar 2A capital requirements for banks calculating risk-weighted assets (RWAs) according to the standardised approach. The PRA’s proposal aims to use Pillar 2A to reduce some of the variation between standardised risk weights and internal models outputs for similar risks, remove future duplication between IFRS 9 provisions for expected loss and the standardised approach, create incentives for smaller lenders to move away from higher risk mortgage lending and facilitate greater competition among UK banks.

We expect that the proposed changes will reduce the capital requirements for small banks and building societies, freeing up capital for further growth. However, in an already competitive market, with many smaller firms growing faster than the market, increased competition will negatively pressure margins and reduce profitability for all banks, a credit negative.

The proposal more closely aligns the RWAs calculated with the standardised approach and the internal ratings-based approach by allowing lenders the PRA deems adequately governed and well managed to benefit from lower Pillar 2A capital requirements if their loan portfolio is considered low risk. Disincentives would be created for higher-risk lending for which standardised risk weights are often equal to or lower than the upper band of the PRA’s internal ratings-based benchmarks. The PRA’s proposal follows the Competition Market Authority’s report recommending greater competition in the UK retail banking.

The proposal also seeks to address the potential for an effective double counting of expected loss that these firms may incur with the adoption of IFRS 9 on 1 January 2018, which would not have applied to lenders using the internal ratings-based approach.

We expect that the UK banks and building societies that we rate and which use the standardised approach will largely receive reduced Pillar 2A requirements under this proposal because of their focus on residential mortgages with limited high loan-to-value (LTV) exposures. These banks’ low-LTV and residential mortgage focus, as shown in Exhibit 1, means that they are likely to benefit from capital relief without significant incentives to change lending practices. However, all of these institutions have achieved material growth in their mortgage books over the past few years, targeting increases in volume to offset increasing margin pressure. We view negatively further incentives to foster growth for these firms through a relaxation of Pillar 2A capital requirements because doing so will weaken the affected banks’ stress capital resilience. Exhibit 2 shows banks’ reported common equity Tier1 capital ratios. We note that most of the affected banks we rate are already expanding their lending faster than the market, with annual growth of around 10% (excluding Yorkshire Building Society) in 2016, compared with 4% market growth.

We expect the PRA’s proposal to contribute to already-strong competition in the UK mortgage market, adding negative pressure to net interest margins, and negatively affecting the profitability of the banks we rate.

Affected firms are also likely to benefit from a lower minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) as a result of these proposals because of a reduction in the combined Pillar 1 and Pillar 2A capital requirements, reducing the loss-absorption capacity for creditors in the event of their failure. A subset of these firms, which have total assets in excess of £15-£25 billion, are likely to see the greatest MREL relief because they are subject to the strictest form of the requirements.

Latest Basel III monitoring results

The Basel Committee has published the results of its latest Basel III monitoring exercise based on data as of 30 June 2016 in a 65 page report. Virtually all participating banks meet Basel III minimum and target CET1 capital requirements as agreed up to end-2015. The report does not reflect any standards agreed since the beginning of 2016, such as the revisions to the market risk framework.

It also highlights that the capital build processes will continue as the higher targets come into force. Higher capital costs, and this will translate into higher loan rates as banks seek to preserve shareholder returns.

The report provides summary data for a total of 210 banks, comprising 100 large internationally active banks. These “Group 1 banks” are defined as internationally active banks that have Tier 1 capital of more than €3 billion, and include all 30 banks that have been designated as global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). The Basel Committee’s sample also includes 110 “Group 2 banks” (ie banks that have Tier 1 capital of less than €3 billion or are not internationally active). It includes Australia’s “big four” banks and one other using data from APRA.

On a fully phased-in basis, data as of 30 June 2016 show that virtually all participating banks meet both the Basel III risk-based capital minimum Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) requirement of 4.5% and the target level CET1 requirement of 7.0% (plus the surcharges on G-SIBs, as applicable).

Between 31 December 2015 and 30 June 2016, Group 1 banks continued to reduce their capital shortfalls relative to the higher Tier 1 and total capital target levels; in particular, the Tier 2 capital shortfall has decreased from €5.5 billion to €3.4 billion. As a point of reference, the sum of after-tax profits prior to distributions across the same sample of Group 1 banks for the six-month period ending 30 June 2016 was €263 billion. In addition, applying the 2022 minimum requirements for Total Loss-Absorbing Capacity (TLAC), 18 of the G-SIBs in the sample have a combined incremental TLAC shortfall of €318 billion as at the end of June 2016, compared with €416 billion at the end of 2015.

The monitoring reports also collect bank data on Basel III’s liquidity requirements. Basel III’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) was set at 60% in 2015, increased to 70% in 2016 and will continue to rise in equal annual steps to reach 100% in 2019. The weighted average LCR for the Group 1 bank sample was 126% on 30 June 2016, slightly up from 125% six months earlier. For Group 2 banks, the weighted average LCR was 155%, up from 148% six months earlier. Of the banks in the LCR sample, 88% of the Group 1 banks and 94% of the Group 2 banks reported an LCR that met or exceeded 100%, while all Group 1 and Group 2 banks reported an LCR at or above the 70% minimum requirement that was in place for 2016.
Basel III also includes a longer-term structural liquidity standard – the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR). The weighted average NSFR for the Group 1 bank sample was 114%, while for Group 2 banks the average NSFR was 115%. As of June 2016, 84% of the Group 1 banks and 86% of the Group 2 banks in the NSFR sample reported a ratio that met or exceeded 100%, while 98% of the Group 1 banks and 96% of the Group 2 banks reported an NSFR at or above 90%.

The results of the monitoring exercise assume that the positions as of 30 June 2016 were subject to the fully phased-in Basel III standards as agreed up to end-2015. That is, they do not take account of the transitional arrangements set out in the Basel III framework, such as the gradual phase-in of deductions from regulatory capital. Furthermore, the report does not reflect any standards agreed since the beginning of 2016, such as the revisions to the market risk framework (analysed separately in a special feature). No assumptions were made about bank profitability or behavioural responses, such as changes in bank capital or balance sheet composition. For that reason, the results of the study may not be comparable with industry estimates.

 

Basel III – The Net Stable Funding Ratio – FAQs Updated

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has issued the second set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers on Basel III’s Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR).

This is a pretty technical document, but does guide readers through the complex rules. Once again it underscores the journey to complexity which the Basel Committee has been on.

To promote consistent global implementation of these requirements, the Committee periodically reviews frequently asked questions and publishes answers along with any necessary technical elaboration of the rules text and interpretative guidance. The Committee has received a number of interpretation questions related to the October 2014 publication of the NSFR standard. The FAQs published today correspond to the text set out in that standard.

Why More Capital Won’t Fix Banking

In the recent results round, the need to raise more capital in response to regulatory change was used as one of the pretexts for the need to lift mortgage rates. Given we, on an international comparison basis, still have more ground to make up to reach “unquestionably strong” we can expect this to continue, and APRA says it will be further lifting capital requirements soon. Wayne Byers said recently:

We have been doing quite a bit of thinking on this issue, but had held off taking action until the international work in Basel on the bank capital regime had been completed. Unfortunately, the timetable for that Basel work now seems less certain, so it would be remiss of us to wait any longer.

We estimate the banks will need to raise another $20-25bn to cover likely rises in the next year or two. Whilst this is manageable, lending costs will rise further. Internationally, Basel III finalisation is in question.

Shareholder returns are under pressure in the current environment, with some able to maintain payouts whilst others are trimming. CBA’s return on equity was 16% as last reported down from 19.5% in 2011. The weighted cost of capital is lower than this but the higher capital demands is still taking its toll.

The drive to hold more capital is primarily to ensure financial stability in a time of crisis, and to protect tax payers from a direct bail-out during a crisis as happened for example in the UK in 2007.  However, recent research has shown that higher capital requirements may encourage some banks to take MORE risk.

But, lifting capital does nothing to fix the root cause issues which lurk in the shadows, and which costs Australia Inc. dear. Some of the banks appear to be mounting a charm offensive where they demonstrate their contribution to society via the salaries they pay staff, the tax they pay, and returms which flow to shareholders (many of whom are institutional investors, and some offshore). But this effort sounds false to many.

The profitability of our banks sits at the top end of international lists, not because our management are especially talented, but because of the level of competition in the industry which allows higher margins to mask relative inefficiencies.  ANZ’s recent trading update showed that when a bank tries hard, they can drive costs down and efficiency up, but not all players have this same focus.  And this is hard to do.

The cultural norms where for all the lip service towards serving customers better, many customers do not feel the love; where capital costs are passed on to consumers and small business and where the litany of scandals and poor customer experiences continue to surface; are the real issues that need to be addressed.

But let us be clear, there is no necessary trade-off between good customer outcomes and profitability. Indeed, I would argue that superior long term returns will be achieved by those players who are really driving their business from a point of customer centricity. But this is hard, and requires a different set of cultural norms to those displayed in many financial services companies today. If they were to ban sales incentives, price products fairly, and put processes to train their staff to deal with errors effectively, this would lead to better outcomes all round. Such cultural changes cannot be legislated or regulated though, it requires management leadership to make this happen.

At the moment, there is a gap between (to use an old cheque processing phrase) “words and figures differ”. This is the gap between all the talk and real action. And more capital is not a replacement for the cultural change which is required.

 

 

 

APRA fiddles on bank risk while Rome burns

From The Conversation.

Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) chairman Wayne Byers has made it clear the bank regulator will be cracking down on bank capital levels this year.

Bank capital reserves are a loss-absorber, designed to protect creditors if banks suffer significant losses. That protection, in turn, will – ostensibly – prevent panicked withdrawals by depositors, thereby preventing financial contagion and financial crises.

[DFA notes, its the Council of Financial Regulators that is the coordinating body for Australia’s main financial regulatory agencies. Its membership comprises the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), which chairs the CFR; the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA); the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC); and The Treasury — so APRA is just part of the problem!]

Byers has decided that Australian banks’ capital levels must be “unquestionably strong” in keeping with the findings of the Financial System Inquiry. But how much capital equals “unquestionably strong”? We don’t know.

What we do know is that the inquiry handed down that finding in November 2014. More than two years have passed and only now is APRA getting a wriggle on.

The problem is that, according to the IMF, when it comes to Tier 1 bank capital, this time last year Australia was ranked 91st in the world. That puts us close to the bottom of the G20, the OECD and the G8. Our position has fluctuated, but at no time during the preceding four quarters have we risen above 60th.

Ranked above Australia were Swaziland, Afghanistan and even Greece. That sounds like, at best, unquestionably ordinary. Maybe even unquestionably weak. But definitely not “unquestionably strong”.

The global financial crisis could’ve led to change

Some argue, determinedly and erroneously, that when functioning correctly bank capital levels are almost magical things. As former US Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan once said:

The reason I raise the capital issue so often is that … it solves every problem.

Greenspan, as Fed chair, was ultimately responsible for the health of the US financial system. Having touted capital levels, his tenure ended just before the sub-prime disaster turned into the global financial crisis. This earned Greenspan Time Magazine’s moniker as one of the 25 people most to blame for the crisis.

However, bank capital levels were in place before the crisis hit. The Basel Committee – a sort-of UN for Reserve Bank governors and bank regulators – introduced global standards for bank capital as far back as 1988.

Back then, it set the capital level at 8%. In other words, for every $100 in liabilities, banks had to retain $8 in cash (or close to cash). But this level was simply a reflection of the average of the day.

Codifying the average into a global standard was an excellent trick. No-one was made to feel left out, or inadequate.

Then came the global financial crisis. It resulted in an output loss of somewhere between US$6 trillion and US$14 trillion in the US alone.

The Basel Committee said it was going to raise bank capital levels in response to the crisis. This meant it was going to do more of the thing (bolster capital levels) that had been meant to prevent such a crisis from occurring in the first place, but had failed.

What now?

The Basel Committee’s latest attempt to take action on capital levels involves curbing “internal risk-based models”. These models allow banks to determine how risky their assets are, and therefore how much expensive and unusable capital they have to set aside for loss-absorption, to match the risk profile of their assets.

That’s like you or I determining how risky we are as borrowers, and therefore deciding how much interest we should be charged on the money we borrow.

European banks have pushed back against curbing internal risk-based models. They resent not being able to have absolutely everything their own way. And the Basel Committee has proven to be a push-over.

Australian banks have pushed back too, with a not-so-subtle threat that customers will bear the costs of higher capital levels. If Byers and APRA do what they are supposed to, and what the government told them to do in late 2015, Australia’s banks will need to raise A$15 billion or more to rectify their thin capital position.

That’s $15 billion not earning returns or bringing in bonuses. No wonder our bankers aren’t happy.

And while APRA and Byers have fiddled on this issue and effectively ignored government instructions, and Australian banks remained capital-thin, conditions have arisen that economist John Adams argues may result in an “economic Armageddon” for Australia.

If that happens, guess who will be bailing out the banks? You, the taxpayer.

Author: Andrew Schmulow , Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Western Australia

Trump could ‘sow the seeds’ of next GFC

From InvestorDaily.

US President Donald Trump’s plans to ease banking regulation poses a risk to global financial stability, according to a UNSW professor.

University of Sydney associate professor Eliza Wu said the relaxation of the Dodd-Frank Act, introduced by former President Barack Obama to protect bank consumers after the global financial crisis of 2008, increases the sectors exposure to “risky financial products”.

“While investors may be happy about the proposed deregulation, the future prospects for global financial stability are not great as President Trump sows the seeds of the next global financial crisis,” she said.

Ms Wu said the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s decision to delay the finalisation of the new Basel 3 rules had also contributed to “uncertainty regarding banking regulatory reforms” currently facing the global banking sector.

“This is increasingly putting pressure on national prudential regulators to maintain and impose their own regulatory standards – this is worrying as a level playing field for banks operating around the world is critical for achieving global financial stability,” she said.

“When the playing field is not level, banks will respond by ‘rushing to the bottom’ and shift their operations to places where the regulation is less stringent.”

Under these circumstances, Australia would “inevitably lose out” as the country’s high regulatory standards would result in less competition within the domestic banking sector, Ms Wu said.