We identify three business models using balance sheet characteristics of 222 international banks and a data-driven procedure. We find that institutions engaging mainly in commercial banking activities have lower costs and more stable profits than those more heavily involved in capital market...

Even when securitised assets are simple, transparent and of high quality, risk assessments will be uncertain. This will call for safeguards against potential undercapitalisation. Since the uncertainty concentrates mainly in securitisation tranches of intermediate seniority, the safeguards...

A model-based assessment of credit risk is subject to both specification and calibration errors. Focusing on a well known credit risk model, we propose a methodology for quantifying the relative importance of alternative sources of such errors and apply this methodology to a large data set. We...

The three major rating agencies are reassessing banks' credit risk in the light of the recent crisis. So far, this has resulted in material downgrades, especially of European and US institutions, and increased agreement about banks' overall level of creditworthiness and their greater dependence...