Risk Disclosure in the European Banking Industry


Book Description

This book analyses the use of qualitative and quantitative content analysis methodologies for risk disclosure practices in the European banking industry. While doing so, it assesses the level of transparency of financial and non-financial reports by focusing on the information disclosed to the public with reference to risk exposure and management. By drawing upon both qualitative and quantitative techniques, the book proposes two different methodological approaches to assess the information European financial institutions provide to the public with reference to the risk disclosure and derivative disclosure in their annual financial reports. These methodologies are subsequently employed to carry out empirical analyses on samples of European banks. By exploiting the points of strength of both qualitative and quantitative content analysis methodologies, this book offers insights into the advantages and disadvantages of these methodologies. The book is a must-read for academics and researchers that analyze disclosure practices of financial and non-financial firms, as well as financial analysts and other practitioners that are interested in assessing the level of transparency and evaluating the disclosures of financial and non-financial firms, especially, but not exclusively, with reference to risk disclosure and derivative disclosure.




The Regulation and Supervision of Banks Around the World


Book Description

This new and comprehensive database on the regulation and supervision of banks in 107 countries should better inform advice about bank ewgulation and supervision and lower the marginal cost of empirical research.




Public Disclosure and Bank Failures


Book Description

This paper examines how public disclosure of banks’ risk exposure affects banks’ risk-taking incentives and assesses how the presence of informed depositors influences the soundness of the banking system. It finds that, when banks have complete control over the volatility of their loan portfolios, public disclosure reduces the probability of banking crises. However, when banks do not control their risk exposure, the presence of informed depositors may increase the probability of bank failures.




Revisiting Risk-Weighted Assets


Book Description

In this paper, we provide an overview of the concerns surrounding the variations in the calculation of risk-weighted assets (RWAs) across banks and jurisdictions and how this might undermine the Basel III capital adequacy framework. We discuss the key drivers behind the differences in these calculations, drawing upon a sample of systemically important banks from Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. We then discuss a range of policy options that could be explored to fix the actual and perceived problems with RWAs, and improve the use of risk-sensitive capital ratios.




Heterogeneity of Bank Risk Weights in the EU


Book Description

Concerns about excessive variability in bank risk weights have prompted their review by regulators. This paper provides prima facie evidence on the extent of risk weight heterogeneity across broad asset classes and by country of counterparty for major banks in the European Union using internal models. It also finds that corporate risk weights are sensitive to the riskiness of an average representative firm, but not to a market indicator of a firm’s probablity of default. Under plausible yet severe hypothetical scenarios for harmonized risk weights, counterfactual capital ratios would decline significantly for some banks, but they would not experience a shortfall relative to Basel III’s minimum requirements. This, however, does not preclude falling short of meeting additional national supervisory capital requirements.







Supervisory Incentives in a Banking Union


Book Description

We explore the behavior of supervisors when a centralized agency has full power over all decisions regarding banks, but relies on local supervisors to collect the information necessary to act. This institutional design entails a principal-agent problem between the central and local supervisors if their objective functions differ. Information collection may be inferior to that under fully independent local supervisors or under centralized information collection. And this may increase risk-taking by regulated banks. Yet, a “tougher” central supervisor may increase regulatory standards. Thus, the net effect of centralization on bank risk taking depends on the balance of these two effects.




Bank Profitability and Risk-Taking


Book Description

Traditional theory suggests that more profitable banks should have lower risk-taking incentives. Then why did many profitable banks choose to invest in untested financial instruments before the crisis, realizing significant losses? We attempt to reconcile theory and evidence. In our setup, banks are endowed with a fixed core business. They take risk by levering up to engage in risky ‘side activities’(such as market-based investments) alongside the core business. A more profitable core business allows a bank to borrow more and take side risks on a larger scale, offsetting lower incentives to take risk of given size. Consequently, more profitable banks may have higher risk-taking incentives. The framework is consistent with cross-sectional patterns of bank risk-taking in the run up to the recent financial crisis.




A Banking Union for the Euro Area


Book Description

The SDN elaborates the case for, and the design of, a banking union for the euro area. It discusses the benefits and costs of a banking union, presents a steady state view of the banking union, elaborates difficult transition issues, and briefly discusses broader EU issues. As such, it assesses current plans and provides advice. It is accompanied by three background technical notes that analyze in depth the various elements of the banking union: a single supervisory framework; a single resolution and common safety net; and urgent issues related to repair of weak banks in Europe.




Mandatory Non-financial Risk-Related Disclosure


Book Description

This book focuses on the impact of the disclosure of non-financial risk, which could be seen as the most relevant non-financial information (NFI), in the aftermath of the 2014/95/EU Directive. The author analyses whether the switch from voluntary to mandatory NFI enhance the quality of disclosed NF risk-related information and the usefulness of the risk disclosure for investors. The book focuses specifically on the mandatory disclosure of non-financial (NF) risks as required by the EU Directive for listed Italian companies, investigating both the state of art of its disclosure and its usefulness for investors. In doing so, the book contributes to fill two relevant gaps in risk literature. The first research gap is related to the insufficient investigation of the disclosure of NF risks. Companies mandated to disclose risk-related information focused mainly on financial risks, in spite of the width of the definition of risk, conceived as information about any opportunity, danger, threat, or exposure that has or could impact the company in the future. The second gap is that empirical evidence about the effects of corporate risk disclosures is still limited, and the potential benefits of the disclosure of information on risks have not been fully explored. In particular, the relationship between risk disclosures and firm value is under researched, as the risk literature mainly focuses on the incentives question, related to the motives for which companies decide to disclose. The research in this book focuses on Italy, a country that provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of mandatory NF risk disclosure on firm market value, being one of the biggest industrial European countries that had not mandatory legislation for NFI disclosure, and also one of the leading countries in voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting at an international level. It has been carried out in the fiscal year 2017, the first year of the application of the mandatory NF disclosure for obliged Italian listed PIEs. The book contributes both to the measurement literature, as it presents a self-constructed quality NF risks and to the value relevance analysis literature, providing evidence of the usefulness of financial and non-financial risk-related disclosures in the Italian context.