Abstract
In December 2019 the Basel Committee has launched the consolidated Basel framework. The framework inherits the Basel II internal ratings-based (IRB) approach for the credit risk with mostly no changes. The absence of the material methodological changes is unexpected given the fact that the key shortcomings of the IRB approach stay unresolved. The paper objective is therefore to list its earlier discussed shortcomings and to address the new ones. Latter include the unbalanced treatment of PD and LGD parameters, as well as methodological inconsistency in expected and unexpected loss treatment.
Introduction
2018 was a remarkable year for the credit risk-management. From one side, it was a fifty-year anniversary of Z-score family of models as described in detail by Altman (2018). Those models form the foundation for the probability of default (PD) estimation. From another side, just on the eve of the 2018 year the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) adopted the finalized version of Basel III. Here and below we will use interchangeably the terms such as BCBS, the regulator, the supervisor. Discussing specifics between the regulator and the supervisor falls out of the current paper scope. Basel III has endowed the Basel II allowance for the use of internal (internal-ratings-based, IRB) models, including the PD ones, for the regulatory purposes of calculating capital adequacy ratio. Though Basel II models – particularly the underlying (Vasicek, 1987) one – were much explained (e.g., BCBS, 2005a; Ozdemir & Miu, 2009) and criticized (for instance, Gordy & Howells, 2004, Illing & Paulin, 2005; Witzany, 2013; Zimper, 2014), to the best of author’s knowledge, there are still four issues left unattended. Those include the possibility of negative default correlation, the necessity to recalibrate the supervisory risk-weighting formula, and unbalanced treatment of two input and output parameter sets. Input parameters include the default probabilities (PDs) and the losses given default (LGDs). Output parameters include the expected losses (EL) and the unexpected ones (UL). These four issues lead to the inconsistent estimate of the credit risk as we show it later.
That is why the objective of the paper is to trace the evolution of regulatory treatment of internal models from the very first consultative paper in 1999 (BCBS, 1999) to its recent one 20 years later (BCBS, 2019a). Such an investigation allows getting how the regulatory model shortcomings were tackled and which ones still remain unresolved. The banking risk regulation evolution was generally discussed by Goodhart (2011) and Penikas (2015) before Basel II introduction and afterwards, respectively. Nevertheless, the credit risk regulation evolution and, particularly, the internal (IRB) models were not discussed in depth. All the known works deal only with the final, not consultative versions of the regulation (e.g., Gordy, 2004; Illing & Paulin, 2005; Ozdemir & Miu, 2009; Gordy et al. 2014). Investigation of such an evolution may provide one with the hints of how to validate the credit scoring models (e.g. the Basel IRB maturity adjustment component may be benchmarked to international financial reporting standards (IFRS) 9 life-time expected loss computation concept; the granularity adjustment might be used for internal capital adequacy assessment process (ICAAP) purposes).
The paper is thus organized as follows. Section 2 presents the literature review. It explains in detail the logic of Vasicek (1987) model being of interest for the beginners. At each stage of transformation – where applicable – the known shortcomings are presented with references to other research papers. Such shortcomings include the choice of the confidence level, factor distribution assumptions (including marginal and joint normality), PD-LGD correlation, exposure concentration (or portfolio non-granularity). Two additional shortcomings are also discussed in the section, i.e. allowing for negative default correlation and the need to recalibrate the supervisory risk-weighting formula. Section 3 discusses another two previously non-discussed shortcomings, i.e. unbalanced treatment of PDs and LGDs, and that of EL and UL. This section is intended for the advanced risk-managers and regulators. If Section 2 is a rehearsal of previous findings by others, Section 3 comports the novel material developed by the author himself. Section 4 concludes by presenting policy implications and paper contribution to the field.
Literature review (Vasicek model)
The founding brick of the regulatory treatment of the internal models is the Vasicek (1987) model. That is why we would first present it with transformations and derivations that original paper lacks. Then we would present the following regulatory enhancements to the baseline model, namely:
Adjustment for recovery efficiency; Maturity adjustment; Granularity adjustment; Double default treatment.
The starting point for Vasicek (1987) model is the Merton (1974) model. The default occurs when the company assets become less in value than its debt amount. Let us introduce the process for the asset value dynamics because such a dynamics is driven by a single systemic factor. That is why the Vasicek model is also called a single risk-factor (ASRF) one. However, Pykhtin (2004) shows the shortcomings of capturing only one systemic factor and proposed model extension to several systemic factors. Tarashev (2005) reviews six models that may drive the asset value as alternative to the approaches of Vasicek (1987) and Pykhtin (2004). However, none of those six gets anchored into the Basel IRB regulation. The following one of Vasicek (1987) does.
where
where
The Basel Committee suggests using the following formula for asset correlation (
where
The idea underlying the asset correlation formula is the following. The higher PD is, the lower the R value is. This means, the less creditworthy the borrower is, the less its credit risk is augmented when crisis comes in. The reason for this is that the borrower’s credit risk assessment is already relatively high.
The above formula can still be simplified. For instance, Lopez (2002, p. 18) offers the following for the general case of corporate exposures:
Repullo (2013) suggests the even simpler formula that may yield the same output, i.e.
For the last case consider the largest probability of default of
The key implication from the regulatory asset correlation formula is that there is a non-positive dependence of the asset correlation and the default probability, i.e.:
or equivalently there is a non-negative dependence of the asset correlation and the idiosyncratic factor realization, i.e.:
Remember that Vasicek (1987) assumes the weights for the factors (
Note that a negative neither asset, nor default correlation (
For instance, Nagpal and Bahar, (2001, p. 97) empirically justify the presence of negative default correlation (
We may suspect two reasons why the negative default correlation was skipped when IRB framework was developed. First, it was difficult to simulate one. The known approaches to generating negatively correlated binary outcomes refer to dates much later than the ones when Basel II (BCBS, 2006) was adopted, e.g. for the Bernoulli distribution (see Witt, 2014; Kruppa et al., 2018) and for the Poisson one (see Chiu et al., 2017). Second, for the infinite number of borrowers negative correlation is not feasible as follows from (Preisser & Qaqish, 2014). Discussing asset correlation when the number of borrowers is finite falls out of the current paper scope.
Let us introduce the probability that the idiosyncratic factor
where
Then
where
or
Similarly, for the systemic factor it would be
where
The weighted sum of the normally distributed random variables
Li (2000) has shown that copula model can be applied to reflect non-linear risk dependencies within credit portfolio. He uses the simplest Gaussian copula to illustrate his idea. Industry seems to have evaluated copulas of Li (2000) to be simpler than the multi-factor risk models of Pykhtin (2004). That is why copulas seem to have become the basis for the credit risk evaluation for the securitized pools of loans in the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Later copula as a tool was blamed as a ‘formula that killed Wall-Street’. Salmon (2009) argues that copulas did not capture true credit risk profile. In fact Salmon (2009) was wrong as copula might have captured it if more complex families (e.g. Archimedean) were used. But because of the computational complexities, investment banks might have chosen to use the Gaussian copula where one parameter is used to model risk dependencies of the millions of loans in a pool. By construction, it is obvious that such a model materially underestimates risks. This is why Kupiec (2006) criticized the use of exactly Gaussian copula for portfolio credit risk.
Getting back to the baseline model, we want to define the marginal default probability (
as
where
Move systemic factor to the right of the inequality
Divide both parts by
Remembering that
we may substitute
Given
and setting
we may write the probability of
The Basel Committee assumed in 2001 that the approach should tolerate default only once in 200 years originally, i.e.
Thus, Basel Committee approach suggests the following formula for capital requirements to start with (later on it would be extended by considering other loan features as recovery, maturity etc.):
The third shortcoming of the IRB model is the assumption of the Normal distribution for the risk components. For instance, (Witzany, 2013) shows that one should consider the log-normal distribution. It results in up to 100% higher risk estimate and henceforth higher capital requirements.
The structural (Merton-type) default model does not account for the several loan features that in practice significantly differentiate the risk per exposure. Let us describe the required adjustments according to the following list by paying special attention to the RWA value calibration that was never shown before in such a breakdown:
Recovery efficiency; Loan maturity; Exposure amount; Non-infinite-granularity of the loan portfolio; Double-default;
An actual loss per the credit exposure depends not solely on the fact of the default occurrence, but also on how much the bank is able to work out in case of the non-retail loans or to recover (collect) in case of the retail ones, or inversely how much it ultimately losses subject to (given) default. That is why the regulator distinguishes the probability of default (PD) and the loss given default (LGD) as presented at the Fig. 1.
General scheme of credit default process.
Thus the capital requirement becomes equal to the following
Basel II (BCBS, 2006) offers two options when estimating capital requirements for corporate loans: foundation (F-IRB) and advanced (A-IRB) ones. As for the foundation one, the bank has to develop only PD models. LGD and exposure at default (EAD) values are chosen from the predefined list by the regulator (an equivalent to the fixed risk-weights of Basel I (BCBS, 1988)). Foundation LGD was first 50% in 2001; 45% in 2006; and is set to 40% from 2022.
An A-IRB bank should develop all types of models, i.e. PD, LGD, and EAD. As for the retail loans only advanced approach is allowed. No maturity adjustment is applicable to retail loans.
Multiplication sign in front of LGD means the parameters’ independence. However, Ozdemir and Miu (2009) and Meng et al. (2010) discuss that this is not the case often in practice. Typically the riskier the borrower is (the higher the PD is), the less amount recovered by the bank is (the higher LGD is), i.e. there is a positive PD-LGD correlation (PLC). Same time obtaining reliable PLC estimates in general and LGD ones in particular is challenging because of the recovery data insufficiency. As of today, one of the longest LGD time series is available since 1998 from the not-for-profit banking association Global Credit Data (URL:
As PLC is difficult to be robustly assessed (one needs rich default and collection data), the regulator required LGD with downturn adjustment (
The downturn adjustment was thought to offset rise in risk estimate by preserving formula with multiplication sign. Altman (2011) refers to the US regulation and presents the following formula for the downturn adjustment of LGD.
However, The US Federal Reserve (2006, p. 340) states that the above-mentioned LGD should already reflect the downturn, i.e. the above mentioned formula is not a downturn adjustment. All it offers is a more conservative capital treatment of bank estimates of LGD (the higher the bank LGD estimate is, the less is the regulatory add-on, see Fig. 2).
The US approach to regulatory LGD value. Note: LGD_in – LGD (input); LGD_out – LGD (output; suggested by (Altman, 2011) as 
The longer the original contract duration (maturity) is, the higher the risk of not paying back is all else being equal. This is how maturity adjustment (MA) comes in. The Basel Committee previewed maturity adjustment in the form of a multiplier to the overall capital requirements.
Then the regulatory capital requirements are as follows.
In 2001 MA was suggested as the following one (version 01; mult_01)
where
In 2003 it was readjusted to be (version 02; Mult_03)
2006 version is as follows (version 03; Mult_04).
where
Note that the type of logarithm evolved since 2003 to 2006 from the logarithm to the base of two (
The impact of maturity multiplier recalibration can be seen from the Fig. 3.
Maturity adjustment evolution calibration.
Loans may differ in size. Then one has to account for the exposure at default (EAD).
In case when the EAD distribution is not uniform, there is a concentration risk. It means that the very same number of defaults may correspond to the materially larger amount of loss in money terms. That is why granularity adjustment (GA) was suggested to deal with it
The version of the capital requirements (or more precisely risk-weighted assets, RWA) for the regulatory purposes looks as follows (BCBS, 2001a, par. 508–515). Further it was extended by Gordy (2004) and Gordy and Lütkebohmert (2013).
where
RWA – baseline level of non-retail risk-weighted assets;
where
EAD – total non-retail exposure;
GSF – granularity scaling factor;
where AG – aggregate (index), see below.
GA was supposed to be applicable to corporate, bank, sovereign exposures.
We may deem such a non-straightforward computation of
Above we provide an illustration for the GA impact on the RWA amount. HHI stands for Herfindal-Hirshman Index (a measure of concentration that sums up squares of portions). It is measured in percentage points where the value of 0 reflects the absence of concentration and 100 stands for the highest level of concentration. As one can see from the Fig. 4, the impact of the GA on RWA is linear with respect to the HHI value. The more variable the risk estimates are (see upper solid line for the uniformly distributed PDs), the higher the RWA add-on is compared to the case where all borrowers are assigned with the same (single) PD value.
Granularity adjustment calibration.
Thus the capital requirements are as follows.
Though the logic to adjust the credit risk estimate and the capital requirements for the concentration is intuitive and necessary, it was abandoned in the upcoming versions of Basel II starting from (BCBS, 2004). The most probable reason is its computational complexity. Same time we continue presenting GA for the sake of generality for the IRB framework.
Similar to PLC, Ozdemir and Miu (2009) note that PD-EAD correlation (PEC) is not nill in practice, though regulator assumes those as independent ones because the multiplication sign is used. Thus EAD estimate is also recommended by the regulator to be downturn-adjusted (
Thus the capital requirements are as follows.
There are other two adjustments that are intended to make the total capital requirement more conservative: alpha multiplier (
The final amount of the credit risk per credit exposure should be estimated as follows:
where the credit risk capital requirement (
where
Rationale for the EL – UL decomposition is the following. When there is no risk (PD
EL and UL Decomposition. Note: PD ranges from 0 to 100%.
The Basel Committee distinguishes two broad exposure (asset) classes: corporate (non-retail) and retail claims. BCBS (2019a) introduced for consistency the following asset classes as separate ones: subordinated debt, covered bonds, non-regulatory equity capital instruments. The capital requirements calibration for the UL part of existing asset classes is available at the Fig. 6.
Capital requirements calibration per various loan classes.
As for the corporate asset class, lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has preferential treatment (line corresponding to the capital requirements for the corporate SME loans is below the one for the general corporate ones at the Fig. 6), i.e. all other things being equal the UL part for SME loan is regarded to be smaller for the regulatory purposes. In the same way retail revolving (credit card overdrafts) loans have preferential treatment than the mortgage ones.
Output floor means benchmarking the internal model risk (capital requirement per facility) estimate to a standardized (fixed, predetermined) risk-weight (
Another modification of the IRB model is the treatment of double-default (DD). This is a low risk situation when the payback on the credit exposure is additionally guaranteed by the third party (guarantor, G), not solely by a borrower (obligor, B, O). It is considered to be low risky as the probability of the joint default of the obligor and the guarantor is less than the PD of a single obligor or a guarantor taken separately. There were two variations how to account for the double-default in the IRB framework.
Double default calibration. Note: LGD 
BCBS (2001a, pp. 38, par. 183) offers the following. Covered part of the exposure is assigned with the adjusted default probability
Where the weight
The final version of the capital requirements (unexpected loss, UL) has the following modification (BCBS, 2006, p. 66, par. 284).
where
Thus, in 2001 the double default framework was reflected only in the PD, whereas in 2006 it required the substitution of both PD for maturity adjustment and LGD. In 2017 the Basel Committee decided to exclude the possibility of the DD treatment.
The capital requirements (
where
Though it was possible to use the above general comparison of the residual capital amount (K-EL) versus the unexpected loss amount (UL), the regulator decided to introduce a
For instance, for the Basel I purpose the multiplier was set equal to
In order to assure the financial stability system-wide the minimum capital requirements (CAR) are being constantly raised according to the following schedule from the start of Basel II in 2000s to the perspective treatment of Basel III in 2022, see Fig. 8.
Evolution of Minimum CAR requirement.
CAR for tier 1 capital in Basel I was 4% and for the sum of the tier 1 and 2 capitals equaled to already mentioned 8%. CAR for the CET1 was de facto 2 percent during the Basel II era of 2004–06. Basel III required banks to raise it to at least 4.5 percent and to 12 percent with all three capital buffers fully phased in. For the details, please, refer to the Annex of (Caruana, 2010). Capital buffers include conservation, countercyclical, for the systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) ones. Each costs 2.5 percent of RWA, see Basel III phase-in arrangements (URL:
The last shortcoming of the IRB approach is the absence of regular calibration of the above described parameters R and M. The calibration is preserved disregarding the change in economic environment that occurred since the last parameter values calibration in 2004. Since then the list of the Basel Committee members presenting survey data to calibrate parameters increased from a dozen close to three dozens. Same time inputs to the Vasicek formula are required to be regularly validated and at least annually updated in case of the models’ forecasting ability deterioration. This means that given no changes in Basel III version of 2017, the overall risk assessment for regulatory purposes might be biased even though the inputs such as PD, LGD, EAD might be sufficiently correct and accurate.
The two additional shortcomings of the Vasicek model are the following:
Unbalanced treatment of PDs and LGDs; and Unbalanced treatment of EL and UL.
When we say unbalanced treatment, we mean that the capital requirements and the indication of the financial standing of the financial institution may vary because of the parameter manipulation whereas the actual change in the risk profile does not occur. This is important to understand for the regulators and the financial analysts covering the financial services’ sector and especially the banking one.
Let us consider the following example of a portfolio with 200 loans granted initially. Thus for the default definition of 90 days (standard one set in (BCBS, 2006) and (BCBS, 2017a)) past due the probability of default is 28%, whereas the one for 180 days (was used by some EU regulators having exercised its right for national discretion) equals to 23%. However, the expected loss is the same for any default definition, i.e., 22% or 45 non-performing loans out of 200 total ones (see Table 1 and Fig. 9a).
Schedule for the hypothetical loan portfolio redemption
Schedule for the hypothetical loan portfolio redemption
Note: # – number of; PD
Upper solid line at the Fig. 9b shows that the longer the default definition threshold is, the larger the minimum capital requirement is given the same expected loss amount (we assume this is an A-IRB bank). It comes from the fact that variation in LGD contributes more to the model than variation in PD.
Capital requirements rise the longer the default definition is for varying LGD.
Lower dashed line at the Fig. 9b shows that within the F-IRB framework the longer default definition would result in smaller capital requirements. That could have been the reason why the regulator introduced ‘unlikely to pay’ (UTP) criteria (BCBS, 2006, p. 100. par. 453) to account for defaults earlier. However, at the A-IRB world UTP criteria triggering would result in less capital requirements all else being equal.
As we see from the Fig. 9, depending on the IRB approach in place – foundation or advanced – the UTP criteria may result in both higher and lower capital requirements. That is why we recommend to exclude UTP to base the credit risk capital requirements on the quantitative parameters such as 90 days past due only.
The breakdown into expected and unexpected losses is based on the idea that expected losses stand for the first moment of the loss distribution (BCBS, 2005a). The residual of VaR and EL is UL. Nevertheless, the accounting treatment does not impose any requirement on what should be deducted from capital in the numerator of CAR (currently it is EL) and what should be benchmarked against the residual amount of capital as the denominator of CAR (today it is
First, the Fig. 10 shows that in case the bank has capital in excess of the total risk (consider upper line), then for the bank it is more beneficial to allocate most risk to EL. It implies increase in CAR or granting more loans.
On the opposite, if the bank’s capital is less than its total risk (consider lower line at the Fig. 10), the bank may be incentivized to allocate most risk to the UL in order to demonstrate higher CAR. Policy implications here are to impose the credit risk regulation by merely comparing capital to the sum of the EL and UL to avoid possibilities for capital arbitrage.
Second, when one raises the minimum capital requirement (CAR), i.e. adjusts upwards right hand-side of the inequality (
This means that regulator does not require more capital against expected losses. Take the following example in Table 2. Let there be two banks. The total risk amount for the two banks is the same (Risk
Computational example for changes in CAR regulatory requirements impact
Computational example for changes in CAR regulatory requirements impact
Note: pp – percentage points.
Capital Arbitrage Illustration when CAR varies because of EL-UL redistribution (total risk estimate being constant).
Suppose both banks have the same initial capital (
Nevertheless, if the regulator wishes to give a signal to the industry upon its regulatory reforms, it is recommended to use another approach, namely, option 1 (non-proportionate treatment of UL and EL, see line 10 in the Table 2) and option 2 (proportionate treatment of the EL-UL components, see line 11 in the Table 2). Then changes in regulation would signal to a market different financial soundness of the two banks. When CAR for bank 2 decreases more from such a reform than for bank 1, stakeholders may see that bank 2 takes on more risks, than the bank 1 (by
To sum up the paper contribution to the field we may list three points:
We collected in one place the evolution of regulatory parameters used to govern the capital treatment for the credit risk within the internal-ratings-based (IRB) models (for concise summary, please, consult Annexes 1 and 2); We collected the existing criticism of the IRB models in a single place; We raised the shortcomings of the IRB approach that were not discussed before. It includes the following:
The current capital requirements can be manipulated by the choice of default definition. Particularly, allowing for the various unlikely to pay criteria may effectively decrease capital requirements. That is why we suggest only a single quantitative measure of 90 days past due to be used to assure level playing field and model output comparability between the banks. The current capital requirements can be manipulated by the decomposition of total risk into the expected and unexpected parts. As a result, the bank may choose the composition of its loan book (i.e. the proportions of high and low risky borrowers) so that to either augment its CAR or to have the opportunity to offer more loans. Here are two suggestions. First, the capital regulation should target comparing total capital to total loss estimate without its decomposition into the expected and unexpected parts via CAR computation. Second, in order to produce information signals about the bank’s soundness the regulator should prefer adjusting exposure-specific risk-weights instead of adjusting overall CAR threshold. Thus a sectoral countercyclical capital buffer (BCBS, 2019b) should be preferred to the general one (BCBS, 2017b).
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
Author acknowledges the anonymous reviewer for the useful and detailed comments. The paper was prepared within the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) and supported within the framework of a subsidy by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5-100’.
Annex 1. Asset Correlation function parameters evolution
Note: n/a – not applicable.
#
Exposure type name
Year
Coef. (
Ref.
1.
General (fixed)
2001
20
n/a
n/a
n/a
(BCBS, 2001b, pp. 36, par. 172)
2.
General (variable)
2002
n/a
10
20
50
(Lopez, 2002, p. 18)
3.
Corporate
2003
n/a
12
24
50
(BCBS, 2005c)
4.
Small and medium enterprises (SME)
2003
4
12
24
50
(BCBS, 2004)
5.
Highly-volatile commercial real estate (HVCRE)
2003
n/a
12
30
50
(BCBS, 2004)
6.
Plastic cards (qualifying revolving retail)
2003
n/a
2
17
35
(BCBS, 2004)
7.
Other retail
2003
n/a
2
11
50
(BCBS, 2004)
8.
Plastic cards (qualifying revolving retail)
2004
4
n/a
n/a
n/a
(BCBS, 2004)
9.
Residential Mortgage (retail)
2004
15
n/a
n/a
n/a
(BCBS, 2004)
10.
Other retail
2004
n/a
3
16
35
(BCBS, 2004)
11.
Systemically important financial institutions (SIFI)
2009
n/a
15
1.25 * 12
30
1.25 * 24
50
(BCBS, 2009, p. 30)
Annex 2. Summary of IRB credit risk regulation evolution
Note: v – version; # – number; Y – year.
Basel II
Basel III
BCBS paper No.
50
ca02
cp3
107
118
128
d424
No.
Year
(BCBS, 1999)
(BCBS, 2001a)
(BCBS, 2003)
(BCBS, 2004)
(BCBS, 2005b)
(BCBS, 2006)
(BCBS, 2017a)
1.
IRB general
NO
2.
1
1
1.5
1.06
1.06
1.06
1
3.
Granularity Adj.
- -
–
–
–
–
–
4.
LGD (F-IRB), %
–
50
50
45
45
45
40
5.
Double default
–
v01
v01
v01
v01
v02
NO
6.
Maturity Adj.
–
v01
v02
v03
v03
v03
v03
7.
Output floor (period)
–
Temporary for # of years (Y)
Constant after 3 years
2Y
2Y
3Y
3Y
3Y
8.
Output floor (
–
–
90-80
95-90-80
95-90-80
95-90-80
95-90-80 – 72.5
9.
Confidence level,
–
99.5
99.9
Though the internal models (the IRB approach) were not yet allowed in (BCBS, 1999), a discussion paper (BCBS, 2000) soon followed to describe the banking practice and to lay the ground for its further regulatory approval.
(BCBS, 2017a) is effective from 2022. (BCBS, 2016b) discussed the option to forbid developing probability of default models for the low-default portfolios (LDP), but eventually the committee did not preserve such a restriction. Discussing challenges of the LDP modeling falls out of the scope.
