EU falling short on implementing bank capital rules

The BIS Basel Committee has today released its assessment of the EU’s (and the USA’s) implementation of the Basel III rules on bank capital and it does not make good reading for the EU. They key findings of the report are (as detailed in the press release and the graphic below, click to enlarge):

• “Eight of the 14 components meet all minimum provisions of the relevant Basel standards and these were therefore graded as "compliant".”

• “Four of the components were assessed as "largely compliant", reflecting the fact that most but not all provisions of the global standard were satisfied.”

• “One component - the Internal Ratings-based (IRB) approach for credit risk - was assessed "materially non-compliant" and pertained primarily to the treatment of exposures to SMEs, corporates and sovereigns.” In particular, the report notes that exposures to SMEs are given concessionary risk weightings, presumably to try to encourage this specific type of lending, however it is nonetheless not in line with the rules. Furthermore, it finds that banks are given a significant amount of leeway in how to value their sovereign debt holdings, with most across the EU simply applying zero-risk weighting – again this is a deliberate attempt to limit any distortions to the sensitive Eurozone government debt markets.

• “Another component was found to be "non-compliant". This relates to the EU's counterparty credit risk framework, which provides an exemption from the Basel framework's credit valuation adjustment (CVA) capital charge for certain derivatives exposures.” Essentially the current rules allow exemptions for instruments which are not traded on exchanges or the wider market and therefore may be hard to value. Furthermore, this “materially boosts bank capital ratios,” though the report accepts that the EU is considering changes to these specific rules.

• Overall the EU was given the second lowest rating (on a scale of four) of “materially non-compliant”, making it the first jurisdiction to be found on the whole not the be complying with the Basel rules. The assessment is also particularly poor compared to the US, which was found to be “largely compliant” with the rules, in general its failings also seem to be more minor as well as less numerous.

The European Commission’s response can be found here, while there is also a response section following the executive summary in the main report. The EC claims the EU’s approach is “particularly ambitious approach, unique in the world”, which is true to an extent given the diverse nature of national banking systems. The response notes that some changes are already in the pipeline, but largely challenges the interpretation which the Basel Committee makes of the rules. On the whole it is not entirely convincing but then, since the Committee cannot force the EU to change, it seems the Commission is largely happy to ‘agree to disagree’ on a number of areas.

While all of this may seem rather mundane and technical it does have some important implications.

First off, it raises questions about the quality and thoroughness of the recent ECB and European Banking Authority stress tests. We, along with plenty of others, have already raised concerns about this and the report adds further weight to those concerns. Furthermore, the specific problems outlined would certainly have helped present European banks as having higher capital ratios largely by reducing the perceived riskiness of certain assets they hold.

A report by Yalman Onaran for Bloomberg earlier this week highlighted the problems relating to the use of banks internal models to weight risk by contrasting this approach to that of using the pure leverage ratio. As the article notes, under the leverage ratio approach 12 large European banks would need to raise a further €66bn in capital. While neither approach is perfect, the Basel Committee’s indictment of the bank’s internal models and the way a large number of exposures in a number of sectors are valued seems to support such analysis and criticisms.

The second important implication is that is once again clearly highlights that the EU probably remains the more important level of policy making and legislation than international level or international organisations – at least when it comes to how things are structure on the ground.

Despite agreeing to follow the Basel III rules the EU is the one that designs and implements the specific legislation. In this case it has clearly altered the rules significantly to suit its own needs – the gap with the original rules as well as how they are interpreted and implemented in other jurisdictions is clear. Furthermore, while the Basel Committee can issue a damning judgement of the EU’s approach, it cannot force it to change. In this relationship all the hard (legal) power lies with the EU. This also extends beyond just implementation to interpretation. Despite writing the Basel III rules the Basel Committee is not even able to guarantee primacy on how they should be interpreted as the EU’s response to the report clearly shows.

Slovenia dodges bailout as it swallows cost of bank overhaul alone

The Slovenian Central Bank this morning released the long anticipated results of the stress test of Slovenian banks. The full results can be found here, while the press release is available here and a reader-friendly Q&A here.

The release did not begin well, with the English feed of the conference proving slow and laggy – similarly to the tests themselves, whose results have been delayed a couple of times. Beyond that, though, things went much as expected, with the tests showing a €4.8bn hole which needs to be filled, around the expectations of €4bn to €5bn. Below, we lay out our key thoughts:

The macroeconomic scenarios include some optimistic export numbers. As we have said before for Slovenia, and others, relying on exports alone to prop up GDP can be a risky game.

The tests are based on data from the end of 2012. This is a problem with these tests in general, but has been exacerbated by delays in the case of Slovenia. The data are one year out of date – a year where the Slovenian economy has struggled, and non-performing loans held by banks have increased steadily.

The €4.8bn figure is taken from the adverse scenario, and it's not exactly clear why this is done when the figures shown under the base scenario are normally used in these tests. This could be seen as an attempt to be 'extra conservative', or a sign that the base case is a bit outdated in terms of projections or data.

 

€3bn of the money will come from the government and be injected into the three largest state-owned banks (NLB, NKBM and Abanka). €2bn will be in the form of cash, with the rest in the form of government securities. A further €441m will come from a 100% write-down of subordinated debt.

The largest banks will also transfer €1.7bn in non-performing loans to the country’s bad bank – exactly what price this will be at remains unclear. It is also unclear if the bad bank will require further state support. Overall, this is a huge amount of support for the largest banks in the sector. The remaining small banks will be forced to raise around €1.1bn through private sources before June 2014. If they fail, then the government may step in once again (although this will certainly involve further bail-ins).

As a result of this bank recapitalisation, Slovenia's government debt will rise to 75.6% of GDP. Not massive by standards of the eurozone crisis, but high enough that we could see upward pressure on borrowing costs, especially given the poor growth outlook for the economy. It also means that both the public and private sector in Slovenia is heavily indebted. This risks weighing on the economy, and could potentially create a downward spiral as domestic demand, investment and government spending falls.

One of the more astonishing figures (to us) is that the stress tests cost €21 million (around 0.06% of GDP) to conduct, due to fees for the consulting firms such as Oliver Wyman, Roland Berger, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte.

So far, then, Slovenia has managed to avoid the need for external aid, despite a significant overhaul of its banking sector. However, the economy remains in a fragile state, and any shocks to the system over the next six months, as the overhaul takes place, could push the economy into a wider and deeper crisis.

An EU bank bailout facility?

Bloomberg reports on a potential proposal by the European Commission to alter the EU’s ‘Balance of Payments’ (BoP) facility to allow it to aid banks which may need to be recapitalised in the aftermath of next year’s ECB Asset Quality Review and the EU's bank stress tests.

As a reminder, the BoP facility was originally created to aid countries with currency crises that may impact the rest of the EU or the fundamental stability of the state. It has since been adjusted to apply to only non-euro members and seen its scope widened slightly with its budget increased to €50bn due to the financial crisis. It is guaranteed by the EU budget and therefore ultimately by the member states - with the UK underwriting around 14-15%.

What is the rationale behind this move?

• Next year’s stress tests are hopefully going to be the most stringent and comprehensive so far, yet there are fears that, without clear aid to help banks found to be in trouble, supervisors may shy away from revealing any deep problems.
• This is backed somewhat by the ECB’s insistence that the stress tests will not be able to be effective unless there are clear backstops for banks in place.
• The eurozone does have some form of backstop in the shape of the ESM which can provide aid to banks (via states) but also has a direct bank recap tool.

Can it be done?

• The most likely approach would be to use Article 352 (the flexibility clause) to adjust the regulation establishing the facility.
• However, the facility also has a treaty base, Article 143, which specifies lending to states. For this reason, it seems unlikely that a direct recapitalisation tool could be added but a credit line which is lent to states to solely aid banks could potentially be. This could come with less or more specific financial sector conditions than other loans (for example see ESM and Spanish bank bailout).
• This would require unanimous approval in the Council. So far, Germany and the UK have expressed scepticism based on the fear that a backstop would reduce the pressure on banks (and their governments) to reform and clean up ahead of the tests.

Could it be significant?

• Yes. If it were approved it would create a collective fund to salvage banks should a member state be unable to deal with the problem alone. If the UK were to approve the move it could open up the door for future pay-outs of funds to aid other countries' banks – decisions taken under qualified majority voting. 
• Furthermore, it also seems to be driven by events in the eurozone. Firstly, it seems an attempt to extend this centralised banking union model (to break the so-called sovereign-bank loop) to the entire EU - even though the other countries have already rejected this to a large extent. If they really wanted to join the banking union, which some might, there will be chances for them to engage directly.
• The creation of the fund would raise some serious questions. Will this backstop exist without strong influence over the amount of risk taken in or the relative size of banking sectors to governments across the EU? If so, surely that creates a moral hazard problem. If not, it would necessitate far greater powers over member states' financial sectors. 
• Lastly, it highlights the level of concern around the health of many of the EU's banks. This was furthered by the EBA's recent assessment that the largest EU banks are some €70bn short of where they need to be to meet the new Basel III rules.

Some preliminary thoughts on the stress tests for Spanish banks: lots of optimistic assumptions...

Here is the full report (and the bank-by-bank results) from the latest Spanish bank stress test exercise. Below we provide the key points and our initial thoughts on them.

The tests put the total capital needs of Spanish banks at €59.3bn, but Spanish Deputy Finance Minister Fernando Jiménez Latorre (in the picture) just told journalists during the press conference that, assuming that Spanish banks manage to raise part of the money from other sources, the Spanish government could ask the EFSF for "around €40bn" (as we anticipated here).

Key points: 

• 14 banks assessed, 7 found to be well capitalised, 7 found to need capital injection. Total needs put at €59.3bn. This falls to €53.75bn when the mergers under way and the tax effects are considered;

• €24.7bn of the total amount is earmarked for Bankia alone, with a further €10.8bn for CatalunyaCaixa and €7.2bn for NovaGalicia;

• The adverse economic scenario assessed was: 6.5% cumulative GDP drop, unemployment reaching 27.2% and additional drops in house and land price indices of 25% and 60% respectively, for the three-year period from 2012 to 2014;

• Cumulative credit losses for the in-scope domestic back book of lending assets are approximately €270bn for the adverse (stress) scenario, of which €265bn correspond to the existing book. This compares with cumulative credit losses amounting to approximately €183bn under the base scenario.

Open Europe take: 

• The base case scenario seems overly optimistic, the adverse scenario looks more realistic - although we expect a fall in house prices of around 35% rather than the 25% assumed. The prediction that unemployment will peak at 27.2% also seems optimistic given that there is plenty more austerity and internal devaluation to come while the structural labour market reforms are yet to take effect.

• Oliver Wyman's report strongly assumes that all the previous capital buffers and loan loss provisions have been well implemented with suitable quality of assets. However, this is far from assured;

• The level of non-performing mortgage loans seems incredibly low at 3.3% currently with losses only predicted to rise to 4.1% under the adverse scenario. This number could well be distorted by forbearance (delaying foreclosing on loans likely to default to avoid taking losses) by struggling banks. It will also massively increase if unemployment and economic growth turn out to be worse than predicted;

• The levels of recovery on foreclosed assets seem a bit too positive (admittedly a wide range of between 37% - 79% losses depending on type of asset) given the continuing oversupply in the real estate market in Spain. Until the market has fully adjusted, the huge mismatch between supply and demand is likely to keep resale value on foreclosed assets incredibly low;

• These tests do look to be more intense than the previous ones but ultimately the optimistic assumptions do instantly raise questions over their credibility. The structure of the bailout request is also unlikely to enamour investors, who like to see grand gestures, however, it always positive that taxpayer participation may be limited. 

 

Spanish banks...Mañana, Mañana...?

The Spanish government held a press conference this afternoon finally laying out its plans for dealing with its significantly troubled banking sector. As usual Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dodged the limelight and left the unenviable task of presenting the proposals to his Deputy, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, and Finance Minister Luis de Guindos – despite this being par for the course with the new government we still can’t help but feel that it fails to inspire confidence.

That fact aside, the plan did include a few concrete details on how Spain plans to deal with the Spanish banking sector, below we outline the key points and give our take:

·         Two independent auditors will carry out an evaluation of all the real estate assets held by Spanish banks – the Deputy PM termed this “an exercise in transparency”.

Open Europe take: We have been calling for this for some time, so believe it is a positive step. However, we have seen that similar tests have been fudged in the eurozone and Spain before, so it is very much wait and see. Taking an adverse scenario and ensuring these assets are written down to their real values is key – if they start posting falls in the future it will reignite the uncertainty surrounding the banking sector. The Spanish government also failed to mention that, at least according to the Spanish press, de Guindos was going to be asked to hire independent auditors by his eurozone counterparts at the meeting of eurozone finance ministers next week.

·         By the end of 2012, provisions to cover against losses on real estate loans considered as ‘non problematic’ will have to increase from 7% to 30%.

Open Europe take: This seems far too low. Given comparisons to Ireland we expect real estate prices could fall by another 35% in Spain. Additionally, this move seems to be skipping a step – Spanish banks already have €136bn in ‘doubtful’ loans against only €54bn in provisions, surely provisions against these very risky assets should be increased first or at least in tandem.

·         In absolute terms, this means an increase of around €30bn.

Open Europe take: Again, far too little. We predict that Spanish banks would need to at least double their provisions, taking them up to around €100bn. Similar estimates abound, with RBS calling for an additional €100bn and Roubini Global Economics suggesting it could go as high as €250bn over the next few years. Meeting the Basel III capital requirements will put further strain on the sector.

·         Banks will be allowed to get money from the FROB, but will have to pay 10% interest on it – Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos stressed that this money cannot therefore be seen as state aid. Suggested maximum use of public funds would be €15bn. Heavy use of ‘contingent convertible capital’.

Open Europe take: This seems to be poorly thought out and based on an ideological reaction. Clearly the government is keen to avoid being seen to bail out banks, and rightly so. However, the banks tapping these funds will be those locked out of the interbank funding market (due to high rates), punishing them with 10% interest will make this recourse worthless. Any use of public funds should come with strong conditions but better to focus on letting some banks fail and be wound down in an orderly fashion, while forcing those that take funds to produce ‘living wills’ and give the state equity warrants. Contingent convertible capital can be useful but does not fundamentally solve the problems facing the banks, again it simply delays dealing with the problems and kicks in as a last resort safety mechanism – will do little if provisions are shown to be woefully small or valuations far too high.

·         Spanish banks will be obliged to transfer real estate assets into ad hoc societies tasked to sell them on the markets – i.e. the ‘bad bank’ that dare not speak its name.

Open Europe take: Potentially a large burden for the state, but given the breadth and depth of the problems across the sector some form of ‘bad bank’ scheme looked hard to avoid. The key here will be transferring the assets at realistic values so that they are sellable or can be written off. The Irish experience with NAMA makes this point clear – a bad bank stuck with uncertain assets can be a huge burden to the state. Furthermore, it could also distort the recovery of the sector as a whole, if the overvalued assets pile up on state books it will be hard for the remaining market to adjust – something which is necessary if the Spanish economy is to rebalance and recover.

The market response to the proposals has been lukewarm at best with Spanish borrowing costs rising slightly and the shares of many Spanish banks falling sharply.

There are some positive steps in the proposals and we will reserve full judgement until the complete package is announced and the stress tests have been detailed, however, it again seems to be a step short of what is needed. The key to tackling these banking sector problems is doing so decisively and in one swoop, rather than pushing the problems to tomorrow. Incremental adjustments increase uncertainty and expose the state to a longer and more volatile burden than needed - given the size of the Spanish economy, that is something which the eurozone cannot afford now or in the future. 

Stress Test 2011 initial results

The Stress Test results are out! It looks like 8 have been judged to have failed but interestingly 16 came close to failing. Given how lenient the adverse scenario is (especially given recent market turbulence relating to Spain and Italy) that is fairly surprising. See below for the table on how each country's banks fared...










We have to say that we're surprised more didn't fail... OK, well we would be if the tests were more credible, but you get where we're coming from.

The banks that failed are below (some with their capital shortfalls) courtesy of FT Alphaville:

Austria
Volksbanken

Greece
Atebank
Eurobank EFG (€58m)

Spain
CAM (€947m)
Catalunya Caixa (€75m)
Unnim (€86m)
Banco Pastor
Caja 3 (€140m)

Emerald Isle stress tests get a gold star (for now)

Yesterday afternoon Ireland announced the results of its recent round of banking stress tests. They showed that the banks need €24bn to recapitalise; that is undoubtedly a huge number for an economy the size of Ireland’s. So why are investors not running for the hills?

Well, from our perspective at least, the Irish stress tests seem to do something that none of the ones that have gone before have – make a genuine attempt to fully estimate the potential losses which banks could face.

This is a good start and the stress tests should be commended, but more important is how the banks and the government respond to the results. Unfortunately, that has been less commendable.

The government was expected to announce a series of measures to raise the necessary capital and set the banks on a sustainable course. However, there was only talk of ‘some’ capital being raised by investors and private lenders, with the main chunk expected to still come from the €35bn allotted to the banks by the original Irish bailout. There was also no mention of bondholders taking losses or of the widely reported new ECB medium term liquidity mechanism. So what we have is some more clarity of the state of Irish banks - which is good - but we're still missing a solid, revised plan to to address the mess.

The response of the banks was also slightly worrisome. Both AIB and Irish L&P suggested that their losses will not be as high as estimated due to the nature of the Irish mortgage market and real estate sector. This is essentially a reference to forbearance – when a lender allows a borrower extra time to repay a mortgage rather than foreclosing on the property. This allows the lenders to delay the realisation of losses, while giving the impression that the extra time given is designed to give a break to struggling taxpayers. Whatever the motivation, this is only a short term policy and, unless the Irish economy has a miraculous turnaround, most borrowers will be unable to repay these loans despite an extension in maturity.

Lastly there is the issue of the deleveraging – the sale of assets to bring the deposit-to-loan ratio back to a sustainable level – or as some people are terming it, the ‘fire sale’. Irish banks will need to shed €72bn of assets by 2013, which is a massive amount to dump into fragile financial markets. The losses on these assets will, in many cases, be substantial although the stress tests claimed to have accounted for this. Whether or not they were fully able to accurately predict the market value of some of these assets, especially since they will be sold over time, remains to be seen.

So a gold star for the stress tests (relatively at least) but they’re only a start. How the government and banks respond will deter whether Irish banks can recover quickly or whether markets will lose faith in them completely - meaning that an Irish restructering and/or another bail-out could be around the corner.

Ostrich banking tests

Remember the EU's banking "stress tests", which were supposed to determine the health of the key financial institutions across Europe? The tests, that were published last summer, infamously cleared all Irish banks. Only a couple of months later, two of these banks were forced too seek help from the Irish state to avoid bankruptcy, which in turn forced Ireland to apply for a bail-out.

To say that this episode exposed some deep flaws in the stress tests is an understatement.

One problem was clearly that the tests weren't stringent enough. Banks were deemed by regulators to need only €3.5 billion of new capital - about a 10th of the lowest estimates that were out there.

Now a new round of stress tests is due to begin, and European Commissioner Michel Barnier has just informed us that the EU will announce the methodology next week.

In November, in the midst of the embarrassment about the Irish crisis, his Director-General Jonathan Faull declared that next time, it's going to be serious. He maintained that the new round of stress tests would be “demanding”, with the European Commission pushing for the tests to also assess liquidity of financial institutions (which seems like a pretty fundamental criterion).

This is actually a hugely important excercise. Europe will never get out of its euro-fuelled slump unless its banks come clean on their exposure to debt in various forms.

So what lessons have been learnt?

Well, there are crucial details of the tests that aren't known yet, but EU leaders and regulators haven't inspired confidence so far.

The European Banking Authority, that will carry out the stress tests, has already declared that the results of the liquidity checks (which will not be part of the stress tests but of separate risk assessments) "will not be published". The German government and Bundesbank have also resisted transparency, with Finance Minister Schäuble warning that "to prevent stress tests from producing more damage than good, we are ready to consider and discuss what of the tests will be published and what not."

This is of course a tricky balancing act - you can easily foresee an immediate run on a bank following stress tests results that aren't favourable. But then again, trying to hide the problem isn't a solution either.

And here we see the most contentious and problematic issue of them all - should a possible future restructuring or sovereign default involving, for example, Greece, be one of the test scenarios for banks?

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet appears to say NO, it shouldn't.

Financial Press Agency MNI suggests that

distinguishing between the trading and the banking books could mean that the tests will ignore the majority of banks' holdings of sovereign debt, since most Eurozone government bonds are held on the banking books.

This is critical since the debt and solvency crisis facing the eurozone is so intimately linked to the fate of Europe's banks that it's now impossible to separate the two. Clearly, one of the main fears of a possible eurozone default - or even break-up - scenario is the losses that European financial institutions would suffer, which in turn could take Europe right back to 2008 (or in the case of Ireland, 2010). Taxpayers would again be forced to step in to avoid a complete meltdown of the financial world as we know it.

The lesson from the most recent crash must clearly be that financial institutions and governments alike need to plan for the worst.

Even if EU leaders don't believe that a default or break-up is desireable or likely, the worst thing they could do is not to consider it.

Kicking the can down the road isn't a policy. Nor is burying your head in the sand.