Balance sheet management benchmark survey - Banking and Capital Markets - Status of balance sheet management practices among international banks ...

Page created by Bob Benson
 
CONTINUE READING
Balance sheet management benchmark survey - Banking and Capital Markets - Status of balance sheet management practices among international banks ...
Banking and Capital Markets

Balance sheet
management
benchmark survey
Status of balance sheet management practices
among international banks – 2009
Balance sheet management benchmark survey - Banking and Capital Markets - Status of balance sheet management practices among international banks ...
Pricewaterhousecoopers
Balance sheet management
benchmark survey

                           Contents
                           Introduction                           4

                           Background                             5

                           Key findings                           7

                           General information                    8

                           Overall governance                     9

                           ALM unit roles and responsibilities   11

                           Liquidity risk                        13

                           Interest rate risk                    19

                           Capital management                    23

                           Funds transfer pricing                26

                           Discretionary investment portfolios   28

                           Systems                               29

                           Contacts                              30

3
Pricewaterhousecoopers
Balance sheet management
benchmark survey

                           Introduction
                           This study covers the four main areas of balance sheet
                           management, namely interest rate risk management, liquidity
                           risk management, capital management and management of
                           discretionary investment portfolios. Many of these functions
                           would be covered by the asset and liability management (ALM)
                           function in banks, but we use the broader term ‘balance sheet
                           management’ because the study covers capital management as
                           well as the more traditional ALM focus areas.

                           The financial crisis has highlighted the need for organisations to take a more holistic
                           view of their balance sheets. The financial view of the organisation has evolved over
                           the past decade or so to one which looks at lines of business, rather than legal
                           entities, as the primary profit centres, and both finance departments and national
                           supervisors have been struggling with the tensions arising from this shift. At the same
                           time the risk view of the organisation has also been equally silo-driven, with risk
                           departments focusing on individual risk classes. Liquidity risk, in particular, has
                           thrown up some challenges to this way of viewing finance and risk. What may look
                           acceptable for each line of business on its own may turn out to be an unacceptable
                           level of risk or product concentration for the organisation as a whole. Likewise certain
                           financial products are not clearly assignable to any one risk class – Collateralized
                           Debt Obligations (CDO) in particular have been shown to present a lethal combination
                           of market, credit and liquidity risks. At the same time, national supervisors,
                           understandably keen to contain the risks to their own financial systems, have sought
                           to impose restrictions around cross-border financing and capital flows within
                           international banking groups.

                           These themes present a number of challenges to the way in which banking groups
                           manage their balance sheets, especially in the area of governance and oversight,
                           which is a major area of focus of this survey.

                           The objective of this survey is to provide the international banking industry with an
                           overview of the state of balance sheet management in banks, to identify areas for
                           improvement and help banks prepare for the future.

                           PricewaterhouseCoopers1 would like to extend our thanks to the many banks who
                           participated in this survey.

                           1 ‘PricewaterhouseCoopers’ refers to the network of member firms of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited,
                              each of which is a separate and independent legal entity.

4
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Background
PricewaterhouseCoopers is pleased to present the results of our survey of the balance sheet
management practices at 43 leading financial institutions across the world. The breadth of the
survey participants gives a good picture of developments internationally.

The financial institutions who participated in this survey    The participants in the survey will receive an individual
were as follows:                                              benchmarking report comparing them with their peers
                                                              internationally. This report summarises the aggregate responses
     Americas                     • Nykredit                  but does not attribute data to specific individual respondents.
     • Bank of America            • Rabobank
     • Citigroup                  • Royal Bank of Scotland    Scope of benchmarking survey
     • Wells Fargo                • Santander                 The survey was designed to cover both the qualitative and
                                                              quantitative aspects of balance sheet management approaches
     Europe                       • SNS REAAL
                                                              currently being utilised by industry participants, with a strong
     • ABN Amro                   • Standard Chartered Bank   focus on governance and organisation. The results of the
                                  • Svenska Handelsbanken     survey are intended to assist participating institutions by
     • Banesto
                                                              providing peer benchmarks of industry practices. This report
     • Bankinter                  • UBI Banca
                                                              has been organised around the following balance sheet
     • Bank of Ireland            • UBS                       management subject matter topics that were posed to each
                                  • UniCredit                 of the survey respondents:
     • Barclays
     • BBVA                       Middle East and Africa         • Overall governance          • Capital management
     • BNP Paribas                • Absa                         • ALM unit roles and          • Funds transfer pricing
     • Britannia                  • FirstRand                      responsibilities            • Discretionary investment
     • Caixa Catalunya            • Nedbank                      • Liquidity risk                portfolios

     • Caja Madrid                • Standard Bank                • Interest rate risk          • Systems

     • Credit Suisse              Asia
     • Danske Bank                • CIMB
     • HSBC                       • DBS Group Holdings
     • ING                        • Kasikornbank
     • Intesa Sanpaolo            • Oversea-Chinese
     • Landesbank Berlin            Banking Corporation
     • Landesbank                 • Siam Commercial Bank
       Hessen-Thüringen
                                  Australia
     • Lloyds Banking Group
                                  • Commonwealth Bank
     • Nationwide Building          of Australia
       Society
     • Nordea

 5
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Survey methodology                                                    Survey confidentiality
Each section of this report includes an analysis of the survey        The individual survey results and the survey questionnaire
results and a discussion of the underlying issues. Tables and         itself are confidential to the responding institutions and
charts are presented to help the reader quickly ascertain the         PricewaterhouseCoopers. Each institution’s individual results have
main issues associated with each topic and to assist in the           been kept strictly confidential and peer responses have been
benchmarking of his/her respective institution’s practices.           presented in a way that will not allow identification of any specific
                                                                      institution based on its submitted data. The results are based
In order to display results provided by participating institutions,   solely on survey responses as provided by each participant to
PricewaterhouseCoopers designed a survey methodology that             PricewaterhouseCoopers. PricewaterhouseCoopers has not
strived to achieve the appropriate balance between:                   subjected the data contained herein to audit or review procedures
• Promoting maximum participation among institutions by               or any other testing to validate the accuracy or reasonableness of
  using data templates that required firms to report their            the data provided by the participating companies.
  actual practices;
• Ensuring soundness, integrity and comparability of the              A word of thanks
  survey to display results based on the actual data reported
                                                                      We acknowledge that the highly detailed nature of the survey
  by participants;
                                                                      questionnaire required a considerable amount of effort on the
• Protecting confidentiality of participating institutions’           part of each participating institution to provide commensurately
  responses while providing maximum insight into the detailed         detailed and meaningful responses. We would like to extend
  parameters needed for analysing balance sheet management.           our thanks to the responding institutions for participating in this
                                                                      study, and providing the breath and depth of qualitative and
The survey was carried out from April to June 2009, and the
                                                                      quantitative response within balance sheet management topics.
methodology used was a questionnaire supplemented where
appropriate with interviews with representatives of participating     We trust that you will find the survey results insightful and hope
institutions.                                                         that they serve as a catalyst for discussion and action within
                                                                      your respective financial institutions.
Please note that totals do not always add up to 100 because
of rounding, or because respondents could choose more than            If you have any comment or question regarding this survey,
one answer.                                                           or would like to request additional copies, please contact your
                                                                      regional PricewaterhouseCoopers contacts listed in the
                                                                      appendix to this report.

 6
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Key findings
The scope of balance sheet management has expanded to embrace capital management as well
as a more ‘holistic’ view of the balance sheet, although this remains a work in progress.

Overall governance: There is still a trend for banks to           measures are still quite crude, with many banks using either the
measure, manage and monitor the different risks separately,       standard 200 bp shock or Net Interest Income (NII) simulation.
but an encouraging trend is the establishment of either capital
management committees, or a broader mandate for the               Capital management: This includes capital planning, stress
existing Asset-Liability Committee (ALCO) to focus on capital.    testing, capital allocation and economic capital calculation, and
The vast majority of banks operate a centralised ALM model,       tends to sit broadly in the CFO function, although economic
which enables oversight of the entire group balance sheet,        capital and stress testing at a number of banks resides within
usually supplemented with lower-level ALM units focusing          the CRO’s area. With capital planning sitting in Finance,
either on business units or legal entities.                       having capital stress tests conducted in Risk can give rise
                                                                  to issues around the consistency and coordination of linkages.
ALM unit roles and responsibilities: The responsibility for       The common horizon for capital planning is usually three years
the ALM unit is almost evenly divided between the Treasury        or longer; however, capital stress testing typically contemplates
and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) functions (see Figure 3.1).     a shorter time horizon. Only a small minority of respondents
Only 51% of ALM units look at capital management (see             conduct a single stress test scenario, with the vast majority
Figure 3.2), but in certain cases capital management lies         using three or more scenarios.
with other departments, such as the Chief Risk Officer (CRO).
Most banks have benchmarked their ALM framework to the            Funds transfer pricing (FTP): Despite the havoc which
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) guidance,           the financial crisis played with liquidity and other financing
‘Principles for the Management and Supervision of Interest        assumptions, banks seem generally quite satisfied with
Rate Risk’, and half of the respondents have conducted an         their FTP framework and we have not noted any significant
independent third party review of the ALM framework within        shifts in trends since our 2006 survey.
the last 12 months.
                                                                  Discretionary investment portfolios: Other than standard
Liquidity risk: Not surprisingly, many banks have undertaken      liquidity portfolios, there does not seem to be any industry
an extensive review of liquidity risk management, and a very      consensus on the best way to manage discretionary
encouraging 88% now have a formal risk appetite for liquidity     investments, and one is left with the distinct impression that
risk. An ongoing problem area is collateral management,           these investment decisions are made on a very ad hoc basis,
as banks’ systems do not easily allow for identification of       without much in the way of formal policies and processes
liquid assets that are encumbered (and thus not available to      around them.
support liquidity needs). All respondents now conduct regular
                                                                  Systems: Banks still tend to operate with a patchwork of
liquidity stress tests (vs. 75% in our 2006 ALM survey), and
                                                                  legacy systems set up to manage different aspects of the
respondents report that their Boards are well informed with
                                                                  balance sheet (liquidity risk, interest rate risk, etc.), but
respect to this risk class.
                                                                  significant changes are planned. With different systems, any
Interest rate risk: Governance remains an area of potential       kind of integrated balance sheet management simulation and
weakness for interest rate risk management, with the ALM unit     stress testing is virtually impossible. We anticipate that, over
responsible for both management and measurement in around         the coming years, banks will upgrade to a more integrated
half of respondents (emerging best practice is for measurement    approach, allowing planning and stress scenarios to be carried
to be done by an independent unit, such as Finance). However,     out across all aspects of the balance sheet. We expect that
we do see that a significant minority of banks now have the       these integrated systems will cover:
Risk function in a monitoring role, but there is clearly still    • IRRBB and funds transfer pricing;
a long way to go before this is general practice.
                                                                  • Liquidity risk;
There has been further progress towards development of            • Capital planning and stress testing; and
economic value measurement (as recommended by the BCBS),
                                                                  • Credit portfolio management.
and 80% of respondents now assign capital to Interest Rate
Risk in the Banking Book (IRRBB) under Basel II Pillar 2
(in Australia it is part of Pillar 1). However, these capital

 7
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

General information
A total of 43 banks from around the world responded to the survey; participants provided a
reasonable mix of large and medium/small banks (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Breakdown of participants by asset size                               The participants primarily operate in the global market (see
                                                                                  Figure 1.3), and are generally active in retail and commercial
                          0%
                                 5%                                               banking segments (see Figure 1.4).
                                             18%
                                                                                  Figure 1.3: Participants’ market presence.
 37%

                                                                                                                                  26%

                                                   18%
                                                         0 – 10 $bn
                                                                                   43%
                                                         10 – 50 $bn
                                                         50 – 100 $bn
                                                         100 – 200 $bn
                                                         200 – 500 $bn
                                       22%               > 500 $bn

                  % of participants                                                                                                             Local market
                                                                                                                                  31%
                                                                                                                                                Regional market
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                                                                                                Global market

                                                                                                        % of participants
The survey was conducted at the group head office level for all
                                                                                  Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
participants, who represent a good geographical cross-section
of domiciles (see Figure 1.2).
                                                                                  Figure 1.4: Activities engaged in by participants
Figure 1.2: Breakdown of participants by region
                                                                                                                            0%
                                                                                      Consumer banking                       88
                   7%
                                      12%

       9%                                                                             Branch-based retail banking            95
                                             2%

                                                                                      Wholesale banking                      84

                                                                                      Investment banking                     77
                                                   70%
                                                                                      Private banking                        86
                                                         Asia
                                                         Australia/ New Zealand       Wealth management                      74
                                                         Europe
                                                         South Africa                 Insurance                              58
                                                         America
                                                                                      Other                                  28
                  % of participants

                                                                                                                            % of participants
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                                  Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 8
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Overall governance
We found that the ALCO remains the key executive governance body with the responsibility for
overseeing balance sheet management activities (see Figure 2.1).

It is interesting to note that some banks have started to integrate      a centralised balance sheet model also supplement the central
overall balance sheet and risk oversight into an overarching executive   unit with decentralised (subordinate) units, which are primarily
risk committee. This is a trend that is expected to continue within      organised along legal entity, business unit or regional basis.
institutions that are taking the steps to promote a holistic view of,    Most respondents noted that the subordinate units all operate
and governance over the full spectrum of risks and capital.              under a consistently applied group framework and generally
                                                                         report into the central balance sheet management function.
Figure 2.1: Body with primary oversight over balance
             sheet management                                            Figure 2.3: Organisation
                                           0%
     ALCO                                  88                                                                      0%
                                                                             Is this ALM responsible body           91                          9
                                                                             centralised or decentralised?
     Balance Sheet Management              7
     Committee                                                               Centralised
     Executive Management                                                    Decentralised
                                           7
     Committee
                                                                         Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
     Group/Executive Risk Committee        16

     Board                                 19                            Figure 2.4: Reporting lines and supplemental balance sheet
                                                                                      management units
     Board Risk Committee                  12
                                                                                                                0%
     Board Audit Committee                 0                                By region                              43            57

     Other                                 16                               By legal entity                        31      56              13

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                            By business unit                       40           53              7

The ALCO maintains a key focus on the traditional areas of                  To regional head                      100
interest rate risk and liquidity risk. In many cases the ALCO               To Group body with ALM responsibility
                                                                            Other
has broadened its scope across capital management and also
includes the oversight of traded market risk.                            Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Figure 2.2: Areas covered by body with primary oversight
                                                                         The amount of time devoted by the primary body with group
                                           0%                            oversight over balance sheet management matters is mainly around
     Interest rate risk                    100
                                                                         a one- to two-hour meeting on a monthly basis (see Figure 2.5).
     Liquidity risk                        100                           Figure 2.5: Frequency/length of primary oversight body meetings
     Structural FX risk                    79                                                                      0%
                                                                             Daily                                  2
     Capital management                    74
                                                                             Weekly                            2       5
     Funds transfer pricing                77
                                                                             Bi-weekly                         2       5
     Discretionary investment portfolios   44
                                                                             Monthly                           2    49                26
     Other                                 23
                                                                             Bi-monthly                             2
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                             Quarterly                             5

Centralised balance sheet management                                         < 1 hour
                                                                             1 – 2 hours
                                                                             > 2 hours
Balance sheet management is largely centralised, with 91% of
respondents managing these activities on a consolidated or               Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

group basis (see Figure 2.3). However, many banks that do run

 9
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

The composition of the primary oversight body (see Figure 2.6)                For the decentralised subordinate oversight bodies the meeting
includes the most senior bank representatives, with the chair                 frequency is at least monthly (see Figure 2.7). The sub-
generally held by the most senior person, being either the                    committees that meet on a monthly basis tend to be subsidiary,
Board Chairman or CEO. Major business unit heads are key                      business unit or regional ALCOs, while those meeting more
participants and voting members. Other voting members                         frequently will more actively focus on market movements and
include heads of market and credit risks, the chief economist                 comprise participants that are more closely aligned with the
and head of compliance.                                                       specific activities related to execution of ALCO mandates or
                                                                              strategies.
Figure 2.6: Composition of primary oversight body
                                                                              Figure 2.7: Frequency/length of subordinate oversight body meetings
                                 0%
   Board chairman                58                       21       21
                                                                                                                     0%
                                                                                 Daily                               38
   Non-executive director        16      20    64
                                                                                 Weekly                              5    3
   CEO                           44                 56
                                                                                 Bi-weekly                     2.5        2.5
   CFO                           38            62
                                                                                 Monthly                             10         29   10
   CRO                           21       68                             11
                                                                                 Bi-monthly                          0
   Treasurer                     10 75                                  15
                                                                                 Quarterly                           0
   BU heads                      85                                     15

                                                                                 < 1 hour
   ALM unit head                 6 47                    47                      1 - 2 hours
                                                                                 > 2 hours
   Financial controller          6 56                         38

                                                                              Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
   Other                         63                           38

   Chair
   Voting member
   Non-voting member

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 10
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

ALM unit roles and responsibilities
All of the participating banks have a dedicated ALM support unit, which typically reports to either
the CFO or the Treasurer (see Figure 3.1).

However, there is also a growing percentage that have aligned       Figure 3.3: Size of ALM unit (including subordinate units below
the reporting to the risk management function, under the CRO                     group level)
or the head of market risk.
                                                                                                     Breakdown of staff by asset size
                                                                       160                                                                           3.0
Figure 3.1: ALM unit reporting lines
                                                                       140
                                                                                                                                                     2.5
                                         0%
   CEO                                    2                            120
                                                                                                                                                     2.0
                                                                       100
   CFO                                   40
                                                                        80                                                                           1.5
   CRO                                   7
                                                                        60
                                                                                                                                                     1.0
   Treasurer                             35                             40
                                                                                                                                                     0.5
   Other                                 16                             20

                                                                          0                                                                          0
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers                                                  $10 – 50b       $50 – 100b     $100 – 200b   $200 – 500b   > $500b
                                                                                                          Assets (USD billions)
The typical areas of focus of this unit remain the core                        Average
ALM activities of interest rate and liquidity risk management,                 Minimum
including funds transfer pricing (see Figure 3.2). Several                     Maximum
                                                                               Staff per 10b of Assets (RHS)
respondents noted that there is more focus on the overall
balance sheet structure and optimisation of the funding and         Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

capital mix, along with oversight of impact of IAS39 and
hedge effectiveness.                                                The primary objective of the ALM unit is to operate as a
                                                                    support unit (see Figure 3.4). However, within this category
Figure 3.2: Areas of focus for ALM unit                             some responses would indicate that there is some overlap of
                                                                    cost and profit performance objectives. This is the case where
                                         0%
   Interest rate risk                    100                        the unit may undertake hedging activities or positioning
                                                                    strategies, but has no clear performance metric related to profit
   Liquidity risk                        93                         or value add. This is one area that banks need to pay attention
   Structural FX risk                    70
                                                                    to, with respect to segregation of duties, separating risk
                                                                    measurement and monitoring from the management and
   Capital management                    51                         decision making related to transaction execution.
   Funds transfer pricing                77                         Figure 3.4: Primary objective of ALM unit

   Discretionary investment portfolios   40
                                                                                                               0%
                                                                       Profit centre                            12
   Other                                 26
                                                                       Cost centre                               5
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                       Support unit                             57

The size of the ALM department is generally related to the
                                                                       Other                                    26
size of the institution, although the size of the unit can vary
greatly. Regarding the size of the ALM department, economies
                                                                    Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
of scale appear to realised for banks with assets between
50-100 $billion and 100-200 $billion as indicated by the downward
slope and the ‘staff per 10 $billion of assets’ trend line (see
Figure 3.3).

 11
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Just over 83% of participants have benchmarked their ALM          Figure 3.6: Reference point for ALM framework benchmarking
unit to a specific external reference point (see Figure 3.5).
                                                                                                   0%
Figure 3.5: Benchmarking of ALM framework                            Basel Committee               71

                                                                     IIF                           43
       16.28%

                                                                     CEBS                          40

                                                                     Local regulator               69

                                                                     Other                         33
                                  83.72%

                                                                  Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

                                           Yes                    Figure 3.7: Period since last independent review of ALM framework
                                           No

                                                                                                   0%
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers                                       Within last 12 months         51

                                                                     Within last 1 – 2 years
Of the organisations which have conducted external reviews,                                        30

the primary reference point has been the Basel ‘Principles for       Within last 2 – 3 years       0
the Management and Supervision of Interest Rate Risk’ (see
Figure 3.6). In addition to the guidelines and standards in the      Within last 3 – 5 years           5

public domain, many of these respondents noted that they
                                                                     Not at all in last 5 years    14
have also used the last PwC ALM Survey published in 2006
as a reference point. Over 50% of respondents who have
                                                                  Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
conducted external benchmarking have done so within the
last 12 months (see Figure 3.7).

 12
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Liquidity risk
Liquidity risk has moved up the agenda to be one of the most important areas of focus within
the ALM framework.

Certainly the painful experiences and lessons throughout the         Figure 4.1: Responsibility for managing liquidity risk
financial crisis have highlighted the dimensions and severity
of consequences from liquidity problems. The Bank for                                                        0%
                                                                        Within trading desk/front office –   23
International Settlements (BIS) and Institute of International          reporting to head of BU
Finance (IIF) have upgraded their guidelines for the management         Dedicated treasury unit –            12
                                                                        reporting to CEO
of liquidity risk to incorporate and reiterate what constitutes
                                                                        Dedicated treasury unit –            28
sound practice.                                                         reporting to CFO

                                                                        ALM unit – reporting                 28
Many banks have undertaken extensive reviews and upgrades               as under 3.1 above
of their liquidity risk frameworks. Now just over 88% of                Other                                9
participants have set a formal risk appetite for liquidity risk
at Board level compared with 72% in 2006.                            Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

                                                                     Figure 4.2: Responsibility for measuring liquidity risk
Management, measurement and monitoring
liquidity risk                                                                                               0%
                                                                        Within trading desk/front office –    2
In risk management, we distinguish between those                        reporting to head of BU

responsible for managing the risk (making day-to-day                    Dedicated treasury unit –             2
                                                                        reporting to CEO
decisions and executing these (see Figure 4.1)), those
                                                                        Dedicated treasury unit –            14
responsible for measuring the risk (producing metrics and               reporting to CFO
reports (see Figure 4.2)), and those monitoring the risks               ALM unit – reporting                 42
                                                                        as under 3.1 above
(ensuring adherence with policies and limits, and reviewing
                                                                        Within CFO area
the overall risk profile (see Figure 4.3)). In the world of traded                                           9

market risk, these would be the front office, middle office and         Within CRO area                      16
risk management functions, respectively.
                                                                        Other                                14
However, for liquidity risk it seems that such segregation of
duties is not widely applied. The measurement and management         Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

of liquidity risk still generally resides within the same unit,
as does, in some cases, the monitoring of liquidity risk.            Figure 4.3: Responsibility for monitoring liquidity risk

This is an area where we would expect to see growing                                                         0%
                                                                        Within trading desk/front
involvement from the risk management function, particularly             office – reporting to head of BU
                                                                                                              0

with respect to the measurement of liquidity risk being                 Dedicated treasury                    2
separated from the management of liquidity risk.                        unit – reporting to CEO

                                                                        Dedicated treasury                   14
                                                                        unit – reporting to CFO

                                                                        ALM unit – reporting                 33
                                                                        as under 3.1 above

                                                                        Within CFO area                      12

                                                                        Within CRO area                      30

                                                                        Other                                9

                                                                     Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 13
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Governance and oversight
The committee or body with primary oversight for liquidity risk            Figure 4.6: Board awareness of liquidity risk
is typically the ALCO (see Figure 4.4).                                                                                        0%
                                                                              Very high understanding with full grasp of       16
Figure 4.4: Body with primary oversight over liquidity risk                   the technical details

                                                                              Broad understanding of the concepts with         74
                                                                              some understanding of the technical details
                                          0%
   ALCO                                    70                                 Broad understanding of the concepts but little    2
                                                                              or no understanding of the technical details
   Balance Sheet                               5                              Limited understanding of the concepts                 5
   Management Committee

   Executive Management Committee          7                               Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

   Group Risk Committee                    7
                                                                           Over 65% of respondents indicated that there is regular reporting
   Board
                                                                           of liquidity risk to the full Board and/or Board Risk Committee.
                                           0
                                                                           Around 30% do so on an ad hoc basis (see Figure 4.7).
   Board Risk Committee                        5
                                                                           Figure 4.7: Liquidity risk reporting to the Board
   Board Audit Committee                   0
                                                                                                                    0%
                                                                              At every full Board meeting             68
   Other                                   9
                                                                              At every Board Risk                     65
                                                                              Committee meeting
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                              On request/ad hoc to the full Board     35

Most banks feel that their liquidity risk policies are complete,
                                                                              On request/ad hoc to the                30
up to date and fully implemented (58%), or there are only minor               Board Risk Committee
gaps in policy or implementation (37%) (see Figure 4.5).
                                                                           Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
Figure 4.5: Status of liquidity risk management policy

                                                                  0%       Liquidity risk measurement
   Policy is complete, up to date and fully implemented           58
                                                                           The primary measure of liquidity risk is the static maturity gap
   Policy is broadly complete and up to date, but there are       37
                                                                           using a combination of contractual and expected term data
   minor gaps in either the policy itself or its implementation
                                                                           (see Figure 4.8). However, it seems that the use of cash flow
   Policy is work in progress                                         54   forecasts using stressed or expected cash flows is gaining
                                                                           greater prominence as the primary measure of liquidity risk.
   We do not have a group liquidity risk policy                   0

                                                                           Figure 4.8: Liquidity risk measures
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                                                                    0%
                                                                              Maturity gap based on                   26
Board awareness of liquidity risk has undoubtedly been                        contractual maturity
heightened over the past three years, either by experience                    Maturity gap based on a mixture of      65
                                                                              contractual and expected maturity
or observation. 90% of respondents feel that their Boards
                                                                              Maturity gap based on
have good understanding of the concepts and technical                         expected maturity
                                                                                                                      26

details or better (see Figure 4.6).                                           Loan/deposit ratio                      33

                                                                              Liquid assets ratio                     49

                                                                              Cash flow forecast based                51
                                                                              on expected cash flows

                                                                              Cash flow forecast based                53
                                                                              on stress scenarios
                                                                              Sources of quick liquidity              30
                                                                              as % of funds at risk
                                                                              Other                                   28

                                                                           Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 14
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

These measures are typically produced on a daily basis and it                                Collateral management
is often the case that this is a regulatory requirement.
                                                                                             Collateral management is seen as material for 86% of respondents
Figure 4.9: Frequency of liquidity risk measurement                                          (see Figure 4.11).

                                        0%
                                                                                             Figure 4.11: Relevance of collateral management
   Maturity gap based on                40             20             36                 4
   contractual maturity
                                                                                                         14%
   Maturity gap based on a mixture of   32        22             46
   contractual and expected maturity

   Maturity gap based on                25   43                            29            4
   expected maturity

   Loan/deposit ratio                   26   6 65                                        3

   Liquid assets ratio                  69                                 6 22          3                                                      86%

   Cash flow forecast based             59                        16            22       3
   on expected cash flows

   Cash flow forecast based             29    21             47                          3                                                            Material
   on stress scenarios
                                                                                                                                                      Immaterial
   Other (please specify)               29    18            47                       6

                                                                                             Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
   Daily
   Weekly
   Monthly                                                                                   It is essential to have clear, accurate and timely information
   Other                                                                                     regarding collateral in order to be able to deal effectively with
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                                             liquidity events that may require the use of such assets. It is an
                                                                                             area where banks need to improve and apply greater rigour in
In measuring funding risk limits and concentration, the factors                              knowing precisely which assets can be quickly liquidated and
typically taken into account are the types of products and the                               at what price.
spread of maturities. Other factors such as currencies and
                                                                                             Figure 4.12: Collateral management monitoring
geographies are commonly used as well (see Figure 4.10).

Figure 4.10: Factors included in liquidity risk measurement                                                                              0%
                                                                                                We monitor the legal entity where         60                        29
                                                                                                collateral is held in a timely manner
                                        0%
   Contractual maturities               70                                                      We monitor the physical location where     52                  33        2
                                                                                                collateral is held in a timely manner

   Effective maturities                 51                                                      Agree
                                                                                                Partially agree
   Types of products                                                                            Disagree
                                        77

   Types of customers                   67                                                   Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

   Currencies                           67                                                   Figure 4.13: Collateral management infrastructure

   Geographies/countries/regions        53
                                                                                                                                           0%
                                                                                                MI systems that differentiate encumbered    40            45                 2
   Other                                9                                                       /unencumbered assets

                                                                                                MI systems that identify assets that        45              45                   2
                                                                                                can be posted at the central bank
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                                                No work needed
                                                                                                Some improvement required
                                                                                                Requires major upgrade

                                                                                             Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 15
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Liquidity stress tests                                            Figure 4.16: Number and frequency of multiple scenarios
                                                                                                              0%
All responding banks perform some form of liquidity stress           1                                         2
testing. This is an improvement from our 2006 survey which                                                    0
revealed that liquidity stress testing was only conducted                                                     0
by 75% of the banks surveyed. The most common type of                                                         0

scenario is a pre-defined scenario based on expert judgement
                                                                     2                                        5
(see Figure 4.14).
                                                                                                              10

Figure 4.14: Liquidity stress test scenarios                                                                  19
                                                                                                              0

                                         0%
   Pre-defined scenario                                              3                                        0
                                         44
   based on historical experience                                                                             7
   Pre-defined scenario                  77                                                                   10
   based on expert judgement
                                                                                                              2
   Dynamic scenario                      35
   based on expert judgement
                                                                     4–5                                      2
   Reverse stress test                   21                                                                   2
   (or ‘stress to fail’)
                                                                                                              10
   Multiple scenarios                    70
                                                                                                              0

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers                                       >5                                       2
                                                                                                              5
The one-month time horizon for such stress tests is the most                                                  14
common; however, there is growing use of longer time frames                                                   2

out to one year (see Figure 4.15).
                                                                     Daily
                                                                     Weekly
Figure 4.15: Liquidity stress test time horizons                     Monthly
                                                                     Other (please specify)
                                 0%
   One day                        21                              Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

   Two days                         14
                                                                  Within the scenarios 63% of banks assume that central bank
   Up to one week                   40
                                                                  funding will be available as part of their stress tests. More than
   Up to one month                  53                            90% of banks distinguish between firm-specific (single name
   Up to three months               42                            crisis scenarios) and market-wide stresses in their scenarios.
   Up to six months                 19
                                                                  Supervisory authorities have reviewed around three quarters of
   Up to twelve months              40                            the responding banks’ liquidity stress testing scenarios with 51%
   Other                            9                             being ‘fully satisfactory’ (see Figure 4.17). This is an area that is
                                                                  expected to continue to be of high priority with supervisors.
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                  Figure 4.17: Supervisory review of liquidity stress scenarios
For those banks using multiple scenarios (see Figure 4.16), the                                                       0%
number and frequency of scenarios are mostly performed on a          Yes, and authority was fully satisfied           51

monthly basis using two to five or more scenarios.
                                                                     Yes, but authority requires further              23
                                                                     minor enhancements

                                                                     Yes, but authority was dissatisfied              0

                                                                     No, but authority has notified us that they      7
                                                                     intend to review this in the next 12 months

                                                                     Authority has not notified us that they plan      2
                                                                     to review liquidity risk in the next 12 months

                                                                     Other                                            14

                                                                  Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 16
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

In performing stress tests, multiple factors are taken into          All of the survey participants have done a comprehensive
account to modify contractual cash flows (see Figure 4.18).          review of all of the modelling assumptions (see Figure 4.20).
Most emphasis is placed upon making assumptions on the               Nearly all have done so within the last 12 months, further
value of liquid assets with ‘haircuts’ and behavioural factors       highlighting the close attention being paid to liquidity risk.
that may have a significant impact on the estimated cash
                                                                     Figure 4.20: Period of last review of liquidity risk
flows, such as a rapid withdrawal of funds.                                        modelling assumptions
Figure 4.18: Modifications to contractual cash flows in liquidity
              risk modelling                                                                          0%
                                                                        Within last 12 months         95

                                      0%
                                                                        Within last 1 – 2 years            5
   Prepayments                            70

                                                                        Within last 2 – 3 years       0
   Pipeline                               51

                                                                        Within last 2 – 5 years       0
   Drawdowns                              74

                                                                        Not at all in last 5 years    0
   Non-maturing product profiles          72

   Replicating portfolios                                            Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                          19

   Credit events                          42
                                                                     Contingency funding plan
   Withdrawal of funding                  74
                                                                     Only 65% of participants have conducted a simulation of
   Contingent liabilities                 72                         their contingency funding plans. Where simulations have
                                                                     been completed, it was typically within the last 12 months
   Haircuts                               84
                                                                     (see Figure 4.21).
   Other                                  14
                                                                     Figure 4.21: Period of last simulation of contingency funding plans

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers                                                         2% 2%
                                                                               5%

Oversight over modelling assumptions                                  7%
93% of participants have had their modelling assumptions
reviewed and approved by ALCO or the equivalent body with                                                      51%

primary oversight of liquidity risk. This is typically done on an
annual basis (see Figure 4.19).                                                                                      Within last 12 months
                                                                                                                     Within last 1 – 2 years
Figure 4.19: Frequency of ALCO review of liquidity risk                                                             Within last 2 – 3 years
                                                                                                                     Within last 2 – 5 years
              modelling assumptions
                                                                                                                     Not at all in last 5 years

                        0 - 10 bn
                           0%
                   7%           5%                                   Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                     5%

                                               7%                    The bodies involved in the contingency funding plan are
 19%                                                                 primarily the ALCO and Treasury. It is worth noting the low
                                                                     responses for the board and risk functions (see Figure 4.22).

                                                    Weekly
                                                    Monthly
                                                    Quarterly
                                                    Semi-annually
                                                    Annually
                                          51%       Ad-hoc
                                                    Other

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 17
Pricewaterhousecoopers
Balance sheet management
benchmark survey

Figure 4.22 : Parties involved in contingency funding plans   86% of participants are expecting changes in the liquidity risk
                                                              regime set by their local supervisor, and over 90% believe their
                                     0%                       supervisor is adequately skilled to supervise liquidity risk.
   Board                             0

   Senior management
                                                              The challenges for the supervisors are to have policies that
                                     16
                                                              are up to date with industry practices and to find the right
   CFO                                    5                   balance, the form and the substance of the bank’s liquidity
                                                              management practices (see Figure 4.24).
   ALCO                              40

                                                              Figure 4.24: Challenges in supervising liquidity risk
   Treasury                          26

   Risk Control                                                                                  0%
                                          5
                                                                 Policies that are out of date    33
                                                                 compared to industry practice
   Communication department               5
                                                                 Focus on regulatory reporting    42
                                                                 as opposed to interpretation
   IT department                                                 of ALM risk management
                                     0
                                                                 Poor relationship with           12
                                                                 host supervisors
   Central banks                     0
                                                                 Ivory tower approach as          16
                                                                 opposed to pragmatism
   Other official sector parties     0

                                                              Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
   Other banks                       0

   Other                             23

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Disclosure
Figure 4.23: Liquidity risk disclosures

                                     0%
   Liquidity reserve                 14

   Liquidity gap                     19

   Funding diversification           19

   Asset diversification              2

   Regulator-required                23
   ratios and measures

   Other quantitative measures       12
   (please specify)

   Organisational issues              2

   Methodologies of                  19
   measures (qualitatively)
   Limit framework (qualitatively)   7

   Other qualitative issues          14

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

18
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Interest rate risk
Interest rate risk in the banking book (IRRBB), as it is referred to in the various documents produced
by the Basel Committee, is the area that has probably had the most attention within banks’ ALM
functions over the years.

Nearly all banks have been performing some form of interest           Figure 5.2: Management of IRRBB
rate risk management activities and have well-established
processes. However, with the heightened focus on the overall                                                  0%
                                                                         Within trading desk/front office –   19
Basel II application, both regulators and banks are reviewing            reporting to head of BU
and updating their approach to IRRBB.                                    Dedicated treasury unit –            9
                                                                         reporting to CEO

While measures such as repricing gap and net interest income             Dedicated treasury unit –            16
                                                                         reporting to CFO
(NII) analysis are widely used, more attention is now paid to
                                                                         ALM unit – reporting                 47
measures of economic value and capital for IRRBB. Of equal               as under 3.1 above
focus is the governance around the IRRBB framework,                      Other                                9
including the Board-approved risk appetite, ALCO investment
and oversight, policies, limits, models and organisation structure.   Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

                                                                      Figure 5.3: Measurement of IRRBB
Governance
Nearly all banks in the survey report having a formal risk                                                    0%
                                                                         Within trading desk/front office –
appetite for IRRBB. The primary oversight body was identified            reporting to head of BU
                                                                                                              0

by 70% of respondents as the ALCO (see Figure 5.1).                      Dedicated treasury unit –             2
                                                                         reporting to CEO
Figure 5.1 Oversight of interest rate risk                               Dedicated treasury unit –                 5
                                                                         reporting to CFO
                                 0%                                      ALM unit – reporting                 53
   ALCO                          70                                      as under 3.1 above

                                                                         Within CFO area                       2
   Balance Sheet Management           5
   Committee
                                                                         Within CRO area                      26
   Executive Management           2
   Committee
                                                                         Other                                12
   Group Risk Committee          9

   Board                         0                                    Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

   Board Risk Committee           2
                                                                      Figure 5.4: Monitoring of IRRBB
   Board Audit Committee         0
                                                                                                              0%
   Other                                                                 Within trading desk/front office –   0
                                 14                                      reporting to head of BU
                                                                         Dedicated treasury unit –            0
                                                                         reporting to CEO
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                         Dedicated treasury unit –             2
                                                                         reporting to CFO
The main departments that support the ALCO framework
                                                                         ALM unit – reporting                 35
are Treasury, Finance, ALM and Risk Management. This is                  as under 3.1 above
an approach that reflects the general concept of segregation             Within CFO area                      0
of duties in relation to the governance of interest rate
                                                                         Within CRO area
risk management.                                                                                              44

                                                                         Other                                19

                                                                      Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 19
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

The results show that a large percentage of respondents                 Figure 5.7: Board reporting
that have a structure that combines many of these activities
within an ALM unit. There is, however, some attention as to                                                      0%
                                                                           At every full Board meeting            47
how the traditional ALM unit may evolve, mainly in relation
to separating the management of IRRBB positions from the                   At every Board Risk                    60
                                                                           Committee meeting
unit that is measuring and/or monitoring the positions (see
                                                                           On request/ad hoc to the full Board    33
Figure 5.2-5.4). Some banks have adopted a model akin to
the market risk function to handle the measurement and                     On request/ad hoc to the               21
monitoring, while the management aspect is conducted                       Board Risk Committee

within the Treasury or Finance division.
                                                                        Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Nearly 80% have complete, up to date and fully implemented
policies for IRRBB (see Figure 5.5).
                                                                        Investment term of equity
Figure 5.5: Policy
                                                                        One of the key performance metrics for managing IRRBB is
                                                                        the use of a benchmark for the investment term, or duration,
                                                                  0%
   Policy is complete, up to date and fully implemented            79   of equity. 58% of participants use this benchmark within
                                                                        their interest rate risk frameworks. The most common period
   Policy is broadly complete and up to date, but there are
   minor gaps in either the policy itself or its implementation
                                                                   19   targeted is the medium term of between one and five years
   Policy is work in progress                                      2
                                                                        for 42% of respondents (see Figure 5.8). This benchmark is
                                                                        generally reviewed and/or changed on an ad hoc basis over
   We do not have a group interest rate risk policy                0    the course of the year, indicating that many respondents will
                                                                        change this target in accordance with their strategy and
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                        outlook for the interest rate market (see Figure 5.9).
79% of respondents say their Board’s have a broad level of              Figure 5.8: Target duration of equity
knowledge of the concepts and technical details for interest
rate risk management and 12% say that they have an even                                                          0%
higher level (see Figure 5.6).                                             Short term (i.e. less than 1 year)     9

Figure 5.6: Board understanding of IRRBB                                   Medium term (i.e. between             42
                                                                           1 and 5 years)

                                                                           Long term (i.e. more than 5 years)      5
                                                      0%
   Very high understanding with full grasp of          12
   the technical details
                                                                        Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
   Broad understanding of the concepts with            79
   some understanding of the technical details
                                                                        Figure 5.9: Frequency of review of equity duration benchmark
   Broad understanding of the concepts but little      2
   or no understanding of the technical details

   Limited understanding of the concepts               7                                                         0%
                                                                           Quarterly                              9

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers                                             Annually                               21

Most participants provide regular reports to the full Board                Greater than annually/ad hoc           28
(47%) or the Board’s Risk Committee (60%) (see Figure 5.7).
This is one of the principles in the Basel ‘Sound Practices for         Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
the Management and Supervision of Interest Rate Risk’.

 20
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Measurement                                                   Figure 5.11: Secondary measurement tool for IRRBB

All participants use a variety of measures, generally in                                                    0%
combination, to assess IRRBB (see Figure 5.10 and 5.11).         Dynamic repricing gap based on             12
                                                                 contractual repricing
These range from repricing gaps to earnings and economic
                                                                 Dynamic repricing gap based on a mixture   9
value simulations. The challenge for the measurement and         of contractual and modelled repricing
management of IRRBB has been to strike the appropriate           Dynamic repricing gap based on             9
                                                                 modelled repricing
balance between the short-term (i.e. less than one year)
                                                                 Static repricing gap based on
impact on earnings and the longer term impact on economic        contractual repricing
                                                                                                            16

value. Respondents have indicated that they have been able       Static repricing gap based on a mixture    14
to establish a reasonable balance between short-term and         of contractual and modelled repricing

long-term measures. It is also worth noting that around 70%      Static repricing gap based on              7
                                                                 modelled repricing
of the banks isolate the mismatch earnings to separate P&L
                                                                 Dynamic balance simulation of earnings     14
units and forecast these specific amounts. This is an area
where there are divergent opinions over the appropriate          Static balance simulation of earnings      9
performance measures for the unit managing IRRBB when
                                                                 Dynamic balance simulation of              12
comparing accrual-type earnings with economic value              economic value
risk measures.                                                   Static balance simulation of               14
                                                                 economic value
Figure 5.10: Primary measurement tool for IRRBB                  Other                                      12

                                              0%
   Dynamic repricing gap based on             16              Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
   contractual repricing

   Dynamic repricing gap based on a mixture   28              This can also be seen in the split between the limits applied to
   of contractual and modelled repricing
                                                              the respective measures. The two key identified limits are on
   Dynamic repricing gap based on             7
   modelled repricing                                         the static economic value simulation and the dynamic earning
   Static repricing gap based on              14              simulation (see Figure 5.12). The slightly higher figure for a limit
   contractual repricing
                                                              on the static economic value measure may be related to the
   Static repricing gap based on a mixture
   of contractual and modelled repricing
                                              40              fact that this is the measure that was promulgated within the
   Static repricing gap based on              9
                                                              Basel papers as being the approach that regulators are advised
   modelled repricing                                         to use to determine the level of capital for IRRBB.
   Dynamic balance simulation of earnings     42
                                                              Over 80% of respondents measure the capital required to
   Static balance simulation of earnings      26              support IRRBB and the link to the Basel approach is supported
   Dynamic balance simulation of                              by the use of an economic value approach.
                                              19
   economic value

   Static balance simulation of               37
   economic value

   Other                                      21

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 21
Pricewaterhousecoopers
Balance sheet management
benchmark survey

Figure 5.12: Limits for IRRBB                          Nearly all banks generate their IRRBB measures on at least a
                                                       monthly basis (see Figure 5.14). Most of the banks that perform
                                              0%       this on a daily basis are based in Europe.
   Dynamic repricing gap based on             12
   contractual repricing
                                                       Figure 5.14: Frequency of IRRBB measurement
   Dynamic repricing gap based on a mixture   16
   of contractual and modelled repricing
   Dynamic repricing gap based on                                                                   0%
                                                   5
   modelled repricing                                     Dynamic repricing gap based                16             2 14
                                                          on contractual repricing
   Static repricing gap based on              9
   contractual repricing                                  Dynamic repricing gap based on a          12         2     23
                                                          mixture of contractual and modelled
   Static repricing gap based on a mixture    21          repricing
   of contractual and modelled repricing                  Dynamic repricing gap based               7      16
                                                          on modelled repricing
   Static repricing gap based on                   5
   modelled repricing                                     Static repricing gap based                5 5        21
                                                          on contractual repricing
   Dynamic balance simulation of earnings     35
                                                          Static repricing gap based on a      12   2                37
                                                          mixture of contractual and modelled
   Static balance simulation of earnings                  repricing
                                              21
                                                          Static repricing gap based         2 2 19
                                                          on modelled repricing
   Dynamic balance simulation of              14
   economic value                                         Dynamic balance simulation                7      42                      7
                                                          of earnings
   Static balance simulation of               40
   economic value                                         Static balance simulation             2    5    30                   5
                                                          of earnings
   Other                                      16
                                                          Dynamic balance simulation                5     21
                                                          of economic value
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers                            Static balance simulation                 7 2         47
                                                          of economic value

                                                          Other (please specify)                    12          5    12    2
Figure 5.13: Capital for IRRBB
                                                          Daily
                                 0%                       Weekly
   Using the standard             28                      Monthly
   200 bps on economic
                                 0                        Other
   value of capital shock
                                 0
                                                       Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
   Using NII simulation          0
                                 14                    Just over 80% of respondents have had their IRRBB framework
                                 51                    reviewed by their regulatory supervisors, and the results have
                                                       been generally satisfactory (see Figure 5.15).
   Using economic                0
   value simulation
                                 26
                                                       Figure 5.15: Supervisory review of IRRBB
                                 0

   Other (please specify)        7                                                                         0%
                                                          Yes, and authority was fully satisfied               65
                                 0
                                 0
                                                          Yes, but authority requires further                  16
                                                          minor enhancements
   We do not measure             19                       Yes, but authority was dissatisfied                  0
   capital for interest rate
   risk in the banking book      0
                                 0                        No, but authority has notified us that they          7
                                                          intend to review this in the next 12 months
   Static
                                                          Authority has not notified us that they plan          2
   1 year period                                          to review IRRBB in the next 12 months
   Another period
                                                          Other                                                7

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                       Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

22
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Capital management
For this survey, we have included a section on capital management for the first time. This is in
response to the increased attention being paid to capital management in a Basel II world and in
response to many questions from our clients regarding some of the issues covered.

One of the biggest challenges for banks is to establish an          Figure 6.1: Which senior executive has responsibility for the
effective, integrated operating model to bring all of the                        following activities within his/her area
components together and thus enable consistency and clarity
                                                                                                          0%
within the application of the whole and related sub-components,        Setting cost of capital        2       67                   16       2 9          2
particularly when related to the ICAAP. It has drawn greater
                                                                       Capital stress testing
attention within the ALM or Balance Sheet Management function                                             53            49                       9       2

under the governance of ALCOs in many cases.                           Capital planning                   5 67                    12        21           2

                                                                       Return on (risk-adjusted)          70                      21    2 9 5
Structure                                                              capital calculations
                                                                       Capital allocation within          5 70                    19        12       7
As we can see from figure 6.2, most of the key capital                 the organisation
management activities are split between the CFO and CRO                Economic capital calculation       35       56                        9 5
functions. Traditionally, the CFO has had responsibility for
                                                                       Capital adequacy reporting
regulatory risk reporting and capital planning with a general                                             72                      21        9        7

‘top down’ approach. The calculation of economic capital has           Regulatory                     2       70              16        9        12
tended to evolve under the CRO on a ‘bottom’ up basis. Some
of the challenges that arise with this approach are, for example:      RWA calculation                    67                 28         25 9

• Consistency with economic capital and capital allocation.            CEO
                                                                       CFO
• Using a ‘top down’ holistic economic capital model that can
                                                                       CRO
  integrate the ‘bottom up’ measured risks and perform robust          COO/head of operations
  intra-risk diversification measurement.                              Treasurer
                                                                       Other
• Using this model for stress testing and then linking to
  capital planning.                                                 Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

• Reconciling regulatory risk-weighted assets (RWAs) to             90% of respondents have a dedicated capital management
  economic capital.                                                 unit, with the majority reporting to the CFO.
• Effectively harnessing the capital adequacy measure for
                                                                    Figure 6.2: Capital management unit reporting line
  stress testing and capital planning to properly capture both
  risk measures and accounting components, particularly with
                                                                                                          0%
  credit risk and loan loss provisioning.                              CEO                                 2

• Consistency of balances used for capital allocation and funds
                                                                       CFO                                60
  transfer pricing (FTP) that drive key components that feed
  into economic value and risk-adjusted return on capital              CRO                                12
  (RAROC) measures.
                                                                       COO                                0

                                                                       Treasury                           19

                                                                       Other                               2

                                                                    Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

                                                                    The average headcount of these units is approximately 15, with
                                                                    a maximum of 60 people.

 23
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Figure 6.3: Capital management unit headcount                       Figure 6.5: Activities of the capital management unit

                         3%                                                                           0%
                                                                       Calculation of regulatory      30
          13%                                                          capital RWAs
                                                                       Regulatory capital             40
                                                                       adequacy reporting

                                                                       Economic capital calculation   44

                                         55%                           Capital allocation             67

 29%                                                                   Return on (risk-adjusted)      51
                                                                       capital calculation
                                               50                     Capital stress testing         72

                                                                       Setting cost of capital        65
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

                                                                    Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
As mentioned in the introduction, the ALCO has been the main
executive body that has oversight of capital management with
                                                                    With regards to capital planning, the time horizon used by
49% of respondents (see Figure 6.4).
                                                                    nearly half of the respondents is three years (see Figure 6.6).
Figure 6.4: Oversight of capital management
                                                                    Figure 6.6: Time horizon for capital planning

                                    0%                                                                0%
   ALCO                             49                                 One year                       14

   Balance Sheet Management         12                                 Two years                      12
   Committee

   Finance Committee                 2                                 Three years                    49

   Group Risk Committee             12                                 More than three years          19

   Executive Management Committee   26                                 Ad hoc                              5

                                                                       None – we do not               0
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers                                         do capital planning

                                                                    Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Activities
                                                                    This time horizon is broadly consistent with the period looked
The main activities performed by the capital management unit
                                                                    at for capital stress testing, although there appears to be a shift
are capital planning, capital stress testing, capital allocation
                                                                    in focus to shorter time frames for stress testing compared to
and setting the cost of capital (see Figure 6.5).
                                                                    capital planning (see Figure 6.7).
Other related activities are more fragmented and it would           Figure 6.7: Time horizon for capital stress testing
appear that for most respondents, the capital management
unit is a receiver of economic capital information and that it is                                     0%
unlikely to be involved in the calculation of regulatory capital       One year                       21

adequacy and risk-weighted assets.
                                                                       Two years                      16

                                                                       Three years                    37

                                                                       More than three years          9

                                                                       Ad hoc                         7

                                                                       None – we do not do             2
                                                                       capital stress testing

                                                                    Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 24
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Most respondents (63%) have reported that they conduct at                  Figure 6.10: Board awareness of capital management
least three or more scenarios for their capital stress testing
(see Figure 6.8).                                                                                                              0%
                                                                              Very high understanding with full grasp of        26
Figure 6.8: Number of scenarios for capital stress testing                    the technical details
                                                                              Broad understanding of the concepts with          63
                                                                              some understanding of the technical details
                                          0%
   None                                                                       Broad understanding of the concepts but little    7
                                               5
                                                                              or no understanding of the technical details

   1                                                                          Limited understanding of the concepts             0
                                           12

   2                                       14                              Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

   3                                       26
                                                                           It would be expected that there is regular reporting of capital
   4–5                                     14                              adequacy to the Board, its Risk Committee, or both. What is
                                                                           surprising is that over a quarter of respondents (i.e. ‘other’
   5 – 10                                  23                              category) do not regularly report this information to the Board,
   >10                                     0
                                                                           but instead generally provide capital adequacy updates to
                                                                           some form of executive committee (see Figure 6.11).
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
                                                                           Figure 6.11: Board reporting of capital adequacy

Governance                                                                    At every full Board meeting
                                                                                                                    0%
                                                                                                                      72
All respondents have a capital management policy in place,
                                                                              At every Board Risk                     42
with nearly half asserting that it is complete, up to date and                Committee meeting
fully implemented (see Figure 6.9).                                           On request/ad hoc to the full Board     28

Figure 6.9: Capital management policy                                         On request/ad hoc to the                16
                                                                              Board Risk Committee

                                                                  0%          Other                                   26
   Policy is complete, up to date and fully implemented            47

   Policy is broadly complete and up to date, but there are        44      Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers
   minor gaps in either the policy itself or its implementation
   Policy is work in progress                                          5

   We do not have a group capital management policy                0

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Most Boards have a reasonable understanding of capital
management and the associated technical concepts, with
26% reporting to have a very high level of understanding
(see Figure 6.10).

 25
Pricewaterhousecoopers
 Balance sheet management
 benchmark survey

Funds transfer pricing
Funds transfer pricing has been a key component of most banks’ ALM frameworks for many
years. It has often been sitting in the background and seen as a process function and not necessarily
well understood or appreciated beyond the units administering it.

However, over the past year many banks have been revisiting         The responsibility for managing the FTP process is primarily
their practices and paying significant attention to ensuring that   with the ALM unit (44%), or with the Finance or Treasury
it is functioning properly and is supported by robust,              units (see Figure 7.2). A key governance point regarding the
appropriate methodologies.                                          management of FTP and the setting of policy is to consider
                                                                    the aspect of segregation of duties. This aspect of managing
The importance of FTP has been highlighted as it underpins          FTP is of higher importance for units that are considered
the interest margin and profitability results and, thus, has a      profit centres.
significant impact on business unit performance measurement
and business behaviour. It has been recognised that aspects         Figure 7.2: Management of FTP process
like pricing for liquidity, optionality, customer behaviour and
                                                                                                              0%
trading portfolios require more attention to ensure that               Finance                                 37
underlying risks are properly reflected within pricing and
performance measurement practices.                                     Risk                                        5

It is important that FTP is well understood throughout the bank        ALM                                     44

and that the implications of it are understood beyond the
                                                                       Treasury                                40
specialised functions administering it. Methods must be sound
and transparent and an appropriate level of governance                 Other                                   16
undertaken to avoid potential conflict of interest.
                                                                    Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Governance                                                          While 90% of respondents have an FTP policy in place, it is
Around half of the participating banks have their FTP policy as     notable that around half feel that they have some gaps in the
a part of the ALCO responsibilities (see Figure 7.1). In some       policy or its implementation (see Figure 7.3).
banks it resides with the Finance or Treasury function (as noted    Figure 7.3: Status of FTP policy
within the ‘other’ category).
                                                                                                                                      0%
Figure 7.1: Responsibility for FTP policy                              Policy is complete, up to date and fully implemented            44

                                    0%                                 Policy is broadly complete and up to date, but there are        47
   ALCO                             47                                 minor gaps in either the policy itself or its implementation
                                                                       Policy is work in progress                                       5
   Executive Management Committee   14
                                                                       We do not have a FTP policy                                      5
   Board                             2

   Board Risk Committee              2                              Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

   CEO                               2

   CFO                              12

   CRO                               2

   Other                            19

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

 26
You can also read