Investment decisions of cooperative banks are very restricted to their risk capacity. A well defined and organised Risk Management Process supports those investment activities and assists to achieve a balanced situation between risk and return. Several ways can be chosen to allocate risk...

Within the last decade, credit risk management of financial institutions has been subject to major changes due to the development of the credit derivatives market. In the past, financial institutions merely had the possibility to manage their credit portfolio by either approving or refusing a...

Due to a fast market development in volume and innovation on the structured products (certificates) side, critics are finding fault regarding a lack in transparency and comparability. However, certificates can provide characteristics for every market scenario as its explicit strength. The aim of...

In 2004 the Basel Committee published an extensive revision of the capital charges which creates more risk sensitive capital requirements for banks. The New Accord called International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standard provides in its first pillar for a finer measurement of...

The current financial market crisis has impressively demonstrated the importance of an effective credit risk management for financial institutions. At the same time, the use and the valuation of credit derivatives has been widely criticised as a result of the crisis. Over the past decade, credit...

The current financial market crisis has impressively demonstrated the importance of an effective credit risk management for financial institutions. At the same time, the use and the valuation of credit derivatives has been widely criticised as a result of the crisis. Over the past decade, credit...

Being able to model yield curves from observed bond yields is essential in capital markets. Yield curves are required to accurately price financial products as well as to correctly assess the macroeconomic situation of economies. Current models based on the work of Nelson/Siegel et al. apply a...

The credit business is an essential part of each banks' activities. With regard to the increasing regulatory obligations, the risk management and the associated minimum capital requirements gain in importance. Banks have got the possibility to determine their credit risk by an internal rating...

Market risk management is one of the key factors to success in managing financial institutions. Underestimated risk can have desastrous consequences for individual companies and even whole economies, not least as could be seen during the recent crises. Overestimated risk, on the other side, may...

In almost every financial market crisis we can observe widening credit spreads, especially in the last years during the subprime and sovereign debt crisis. But what exactly drives the credit spread? This paper will outline static components, i.e. default risk, liquidity, risk and the relative...