This study analyzes bank margins in the German secondary market for exchange‐traded structured financial products, with particular emphasis on the influence of banks' credit risk. A structural model allowing for the incorporation of correlation effects between market and credit risk is applied to compare quoted and fair theoretical prices. For discount certificates, as the most popular type of structured financial products in Germany, an empirical study is conducted. Compared to earlier studies, total margins are found to be rather low, whereas the portion that draws back to credit risk appears to be a material part of the total margin. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28: 376–397, 2008

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This paper explores the extent to which interest risk exposure is priced in bank margins.Our contribution to the literature is twofold: First, we present an extended model of Ho and Saunders (1981) that explicitly captures interest rate risk and returns from maturity transformation. Banks price interest risk according to their individual exposure separately in loan and deposit rates, but reduce these charges when they expect returns from maturity transformation. Second, using a comprehensive dataset covering the German universal banks between 2000 and 2009, we test the model-implied hypotheses not only for the commonly investigated net interest income, but additionally for interest income and expenses separately.Controlling for earnings from bank-individual maturity transformation strategies, we find all banks to charge additional fees for macroeconomic interest volatility exposure. Microeco- Non-technical summaryBanks are intermediaries between investors and entrepreneurs. They transform long-term, illiquid and risky loans into safe deposits that are due within short notice. By doing so, they take risks, for which they are remunerated. Besides, they can generate income by making use of their market power and by setting their credit and deposit conditions accordingly. In a theoretical model, we show that the bank rates are set in accordance with the costs and earnings caused by the loans and deposits. In addition, banks levy premia for credit and interest rate risk, and for the access to the capital market. We derive the following empirically testable hypotheses:The margins on the asset side should be the higher, the stronger the market power, the more volatile the interest rates and the credit risk and the greater the exposure to interest rate risk.The model also predicts that banks smooth their interest rates (relative to the interest rates observed on the capital market). Accordingly, on the liability side, we expect the same factors to have an impact, expect for the credit risk, which is here not relevant. In an empirical study of all German universal banks for the period 2000 -2009, we obtain the following results:1. The statements derived from the theoretical model can be confirmed in our study, in particular we find that the higher the market power the higher the interest income margin and the lower the interest expense margin.2. The interest rate margins increase for all banks, in the event that the interest rates become more volatile. Additionally, for banks from the savings and credit cooperative sectors, we see the smoothing of bank rates that is predicted by the theoretical model. Nichttechnische Zusammenfassung

This paper examines the choices of retail investors in the market for structured financial products with a focus on implicit and explicit pricing components. We evaluate more than 72,000 single stock discount certificates on a daily basis from 2004 through 2008. The certificates are quoted an average of 0.58% above their fair value before the financial crisis, increasing to 1.24% during 2008. Although credit risk explains a major part (39%) of the certificates' overpricing, we find that issuer default risk does not have any influence on investors' product choices. Instead, retail investors are strongly influenced by irrational factors such as issuer and product familiarity. Finally, investors are found to make poor product choices (in terms of bid/ask spreads and markups over fair value), resulting in significant losses.

German financial institutions, Interest rate sensitivity, Term structure, Nelson–Siegel approach, G12, G21, G22,