#ORBC

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14 08, 2023

GSE-081423

2023-08-14T16:17:02-04:00August 14th, 2023|4- GSE Activity Report|

Ax the Ops?

As Karen Petrou’s memo today suggests, there are many reasons the new operational-risk framework proposed in the capital rewrite will not only be costly for covered banks but also counterproductive for financial resilience.  That said, the agencies are unlikely to rewrite it much unless the politics of the overall proposal takes the course many banks seek to the agencies’ detriment.  In this report, we build on our in-depth analysis of the operational risk-based capital (ORBC) proposal to go in-depth on its significant implications for mortgage origination.

GSE-081423.pdf

14 08, 2023

M081423

2023-08-14T10:41:39-04:00August 14th, 2023|6- Client Memo|

Why The Operational-Risk Capital Rules Make No Sense

While there are many risks for which regulatory capital is a vital panacea, operational risk is not among them.  The proposed approach to these capital standards makes it still more clear that regulators don’t trust themselves or banks and thus deploy the only tool they seem to know – ever-higher capital – no matter the cost and, more important, the risk.  In fact, the best way to address operational risk is to spend money, not put it in a capital piggybank regulators can shake to hear coins rattle when they worry even though getting the coins out in a hurry will prove devilishly difficult.

M081423.pdf

14 08, 2023

Karen Petrou: Why The Operational-Risk Capital Rules Make No Sense

2023-08-14T10:41:30-04:00August 14th, 2023|The Vault|

While there are many risks for which regulatory capital is a vital panacea, operational risk is not among them.  The proposed approach to these capital standards makes it still more clear that regulators don’t trust themselves or banks and thus deploy the only tool they seem to know – ever-higher capital – no matter the cost and, more important, the risk.  In fact, the best way to address operational risk is to spend money, not put it in a capital piggybank regulators can shake to hear coins rattle when they worry even though getting the coins out in a hurry will prove devilishly difficult.

The reason why regulatory capital doesn’t do diddly for operational-risk absorption is self-evident when one understands what constitutes operational risk.  It’s essentially what God does to banks (natural disasters), what people do to banks (fraud), and what banks do to themselves (fragile systems) and to others (endangering consumers or markets at ultimate legal cost).

None of these risks is meaningfully reduced with more capital and, even if it were, the way the new rules work frustrates the way it might.  As our in-depth analysis of the proposed operational risk-based capital (ORBC) rules makes clear, regulators want banks to look back as long as ten years to see how many operational losses they booked, measure business volume over the past three years, ramp up these sums via mysterious “scaling factors,” and then somehow discern what operational risk will be in coming years and how much shareholder …

10 08, 2023

FedFin on: Operational Risk-Based Capital Standards

2023-08-11T16:25:34-04:00August 10th, 2023|The Vault|

Noting that operational risk is present at all banks due to most activities, the U.S. regulatory-capital rewrite would end the current approach to operational risk-based capital (ORBC).  This now subjects only categories I and II banks to ORBC and then only to the advanced measurement approach (AMA) premised on each bank’s internal models.  Consistent with the overall decision to end internal-model reliance, this section of the proposal subjects categories I, II, III, and IV banks to a new operational-risk standardized approach (SA).  This would result in very steep capital requirements based on a bank’s experience over the past ten years compared to various sources of revenue over the past three years, perhaps taking business-model changes over the course of the last three years into account if regulatory standards are met for doing so….

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.…

10 08, 2023

OPSRISK22

2023-08-10T16:10:43-04:00August 10th, 2023|1- Financial Services Management|

Operational Risk-Based Capital Standards

Noting that operational risk is present at all banks due to most activities, the U.S. regulatory-capital rewrite would end the current approach to operational risk-based capital (ORBC).  This now subjects only categories I and II banks to ORBC and then only to the advanced measurement approach (AMA) premised on each bank’s internal models.  Consistent with the overall decision to end internal-model reliance, this section of the proposal subjects categories I, II, III, and IV banks to a new operational-risk standardized approach (SA).  This would result in very steep capital requirements based on a bank’s experience over the past ten years compared to various sources of revenue over the past three years, perhaps taking business-model changes over the course of the last three years into account if regulatory standards are met for doing so.  Steps banks have taken to prepare and avoid operational risk and respond to prior incidents are also generally not captured in a meaningful ORBC adjustment.  As a result, ORBC capital standards may be premised on risks the bank is now unlikely to encounter on a go-forward basis or offsetting the costs essential to preventing and absorbing the operational risks it now might encounter.

OPSRISK22.pdf

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