Bank Risk

Consumer credit risk assessment involves the use of risk assessment tools to manage a borrower’s account from the time of pre-screening a potential application through to the management of the account during its life and possible write-off. The riskiness of lending to a credit applicant is usually estimated using a logistic regression model though researchers have considered many other types of classifier and whilst preliminary evidence suggest support vector machines seem to be the most accurate, data quality issues may prevent these laboratory based results from being achieved in practice. The training of a classifier on a sample of accepted applicants rather than on a sample representative of the applicant population seems not to result in bias though it does result in difficulties in setting the cut off. Profit scoring is a promising line of research and the Basel 2 accord has had profound implications for the way in which credit applicants are assessed and bank policies adopted.

The international financial crisis manifests itself in Ireland not only as a crisis of the banking system, but also as a major fiscal crisis, aggravated by years of soft revenue policy and a housing bubble that has burst spectacularly. The severe drop in economic output results in a crisis of employment and a definitive end to the ‘Celtic Tiger’ era of rapid growth and nearfull employment. Although the political system has proven resilient thus far, with membership of the Euro preventing the catastrophic political crises that affected Latvia and Iceland, for example, the crisis has revealed significant weaknesses in political system. This paper considers institutional shortcomings in three arenas through which policies to deal with the crisis must be managed: the parliamentary system, the public administration, and social partnership structures.

This Handbook explores some basic principles of banking supervision. First of all, it addresses the general question of why banks need to be supervised, and sets out the basic aims of supervision. It then examines the nature of banking risks. Next, the key areas of prudential supervision are discussed - namely, capital adequacy, liquidity, asset quality, risk concentration, management, and

The papers in the present SUERF Study is a selection of the papers presented at a SUERF Workshop and Special OeNB East Jour Fixe held at Oesterreichische Nationalbank in Vienna on 23 January 2009. In his opening remarks (chapter 2), Ewald Nowotny, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank referred to Austrian banks engagement with neighbouring Central and Eastern European Countries. The

In this paper, we seek empirical evidence for the costs of information monopolies in the syndicated loan market using a novel approach. Comparing borrowers with high and low switching costs, we find that undercapitalized banks charge higher loan spreads for loans to firms facing high switching costs. This effect is shown to be statistically and economically significant. We find that information monopolies exist in periods when uncertainties in external capital markets are particularly high: Only weak banks raise their spreads above what is justified by credit risk for borrowers with high cost of switching lenders. This finding is consistent with reputation considerations and discretion in bank loan commitments. Ambiguity about borrower financial health, which induces the information monopoly in the first place, also triggers bank discretion. Well capitalized banks do not engage in monopoly pricing which enhances their reputation (and potentially increases future fee income). For wea...

The papers in the present SUERF Study is a selection of the papers presented at a SUERF Workshop and Special OeNB East Jour Fixe held at Oesterreichische Nationalbank in Vienna on 23 January 2009. In his opening remarks (chapter 2), Ewald Nowotny, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank referred to Austrian banks engagement with neighbouring Central and Eastern European Countries. The current crisis should not make people forget the fact that Austrian banks deep engagement with the neighbouring countries is one of the success stories in Austrian economic history. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Austrian banks have become one of the driving forces of the process of structural adjustment, modernization of business practices, and deepening of financial intermediation in the region. At end 2007, in Central Europe, the share of Austrian banks surpassed a fifth of aggregate sector assets, in Southeastern Europe even a third of the respective total. A considerable share of the ear...

The papers in the present SUERF Study is a selection of the papers presented at a SUERF Workshop and Special OeNB East Jour Fixe held at Oesterreichische Nationalbank in Vienna on 23 January 2009. In his opening remarks (chapter 2), Ewald Nowotny, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank referred to Austrian banks engagement with neighbouring Central and Eastern European Countries. The

This paper examines empirically the hypothesis that market discipline is effective in providing incentives for banks to limit their risk of default, by holding capital buffers against adverse outcomes in portfolio risk. We have constructed a large cross-country panel data set consisting of ...

In this paper, we analyze the risk-taking behavior of banks in emerging economies in a context of international capital mobility. Our paper highlights a new channel through which depositors can exercise pressure to control risk taking. Depositors can reallocate their savings away from their home country to the more protective system of a developed economy. We recover a classical result

We introduce a model analyzing how asymmetric information problems in a bank-loan market may evolve over the age of a borrowing firm. The model predicts a life-cycle pattern for banks’interest rate markup. Young firms pay a low or negative markup, thereafter the markup increases until it falls for old firms. Furthermore, the pattern of the life-cycle depends on the informational

The implementation of the Basle II agreement in the financial markets of world economies has been seen as a significant advance in relation to the model enforced under the first agreement (Basle I). It is generally understood that the new agreement represents a substantial advance in relation to the first because it allows banks to better deal with the risks to which they are exposed. Nevertheless, when the application of these principles to development banks is considered it can be noted that certain inconsistencies exist, notably the fact that these institutions are typically public institutions - or at least strongly dependent on public funding - and they do not operate the payment system of the economy. Therefore, the application of the Basle rules to these institutions does not make sense. This means that Basle does not represent an appropriate set of recommendations for how these institutions should deal with their risks, whether because the proposed form of dealing with risks...