It is somewhat ironic that while the major focus of regulators and institutions in the financial services sector over recent years has been on developing models for measuring and managing credit risk, most of the large losses in financial institutions over this time have been sourced to...

All banks must hold capital equal to the minimum regulatory requirement. However, in many cases the level of regulatory capital diverges from the actual (economic) capital held by banks. A bank's actual capital is typically linked to a target credit rating, which is in turn determined by the...

Extreme value theory (EVT) is regularly put forward by academics, practitioners and banking regulators as a methodology for measuring the likelihood of operational risk losses that have a very low probability of occurrence, but which have the potential for catastrophic outcomes in terms of...

Within the context of a banking institution, economic capital is a statistical measure of the amount of resources required to meet unexpected losses over a specified time period and specified level of certainty. The amount of economic capital held by banks is thus a function of their target...

In June 2004 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for International Settlements issued its revised framework for the international convergence of capital measurement and capital standards. In developing the framework the Committee has sought to determine risk-sensitive capital...

An increase in the credit rating on an organisation?s debt is generally perceived positively, as higher credit ratings are, in the main, associated with lower perceived volatility in the market value of the assets of the entity that has issued the debt. If banks price their assets to realise a...

In June 2004 the Committee published a revised framework for the international convergence of capital measurement and capital standards, known as Basel II. The proposal includes a formal capital charge against operational risk in the business activities of banks. The calculation of an...

One of the reasons for firms decentralising aspects of their operations is to enable managers to gain specialised knowledge of local conditions. For credit managers in a banking firm, this may take the form of knowledge of investment opportunities and the risk profiles of each of these...

In 1987 Lopes developed Security/Potential, Aspiration (SP/A) Theory, a framework for risky choice under uncertainty. Similar to Prospect Theory, SP/A Theory seeks to combine the forces of Economics and Psychology. This means that the assumption that individuals make choices based on expected...

Although there have been substantial developments in financial reporting over recent years, the reporting of risk in statutory reports is still very much evolving. This comes as no surprise, given numerous definitions and subsequent measures of risk. In the financial services sector, the...