Compliance with Basel 2.5: banks’ approaches to implementing stressed VaR

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to outline how banks are coping with the new regulatory challenges posed by stressed value at risk (SVaR). The Basel Committee has introduced three measures of capital charges for market risk: incremental risk charge (IRC), SVaR and comprehensive risk measure (CRM). This paper is designed to analyse the methodologies for SVaR deployed at different banks to highlight the SVaR-related challenges stemming from complying with Basel 2.5. This revised market risk framework comes into force in Europe in 2012. Among the wide range of changes is the requirement for banks to calculate SVaR at a 99 per cent confidence interval over a period of significant stress. Design/methodology/approach -The current research project is based on in-depth, semistructured interviews with nine universal banks and one financial services company to explore the strides major banks are taking to implement SVaR methodologies while complying with Basel 2.5. Findings -This paper focuses on strengths and weaknesses of the SVaR approach while reviewing peer practices of implementing SVaR modelling. Interestingly, the surveyed banks have not indicated significant challenges associated with implementation of SVaR, and the reported problems boil down to dealing with the poor quality of market data and, as in cases of IRC and CRM, the lack of regulatory guidance. As far as peer practices of implementing SVaR modelling are concerned, the majority of the surveyed banks utilise historical simulations and apply both the absolute and relative measures of volatility for different risk factors. Originality/value -The academic studies that explicitly analyse challenges associated with implementing the stressed version of VaR are scarce. Filling in the gap in the existing academic literature, this paper aims to shed some explanatory light on the issues major banks are facing when calculating SVaR. In doing so, this study adequately bridges theory and practice by contributing to the fierce debate on compliance with Basel 2.5.

Conceptual Framework for Examining the Impact of Basel 2.5 on Market Risk Capital

“…They explain that while high capital provisions are intended to mitigate costly bank failures, striking a balance between the low risk benefit of a high capital charge and the opportunity cost associated with it is a struggle that many banks continue to face. Prorokowski and Prorokowski (2014) discuss how banks are coping with the regulatory challenges of stressed value-at-risk. In a survey of European banks, the authors find that the lack of regulatory guidance and inadequate market data pose the greatest hindrances in coming up with realistic risk measures.…”