Basel Committee Releases D-SIB Proposal For Comments

In addition to tweaking the rules on liquidity the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has released a consulative document regarding A framework for dealing with domestic systemically important banks – important for Canada since we’ve got six of ’em! Provided, of course, that OSFI is honest about the assignments, which is by no means assured.:

Principle 2: The assessment methodology for a D-SIB should reflect the potential impact of, or externality imposed by, a bank’s failure.
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Principle 8: National authorities should document the methodologies and considerations used to calibrate the level of HLA [Higher Loss Absorbency] that the framework would require for D-SIBs in their jurisdiction. The level of HLA calibrated for D-SIBs should be informed by quantitative methodologies (where available) and country-specific factors without prejudice to the use of supervisory judgement.

Principle 9: The HLA requirement imposed on a bank should be commensurate with the degree of systemic importance, as identified under Principle 5. In the case where there are multiple D-SIB buckets in a jurisdiction, this could imply differentiated levels of HLA between D-SIB buckets.

[Assessment Methodology Principle 2] 13. Paragraph 14 of the G-SIB rules text states that “global systemic importance should be measured in terms of the impact that a failure of a bank can have on the global financial system and wider economy rather than the risk that a failure can occur. This can be thought of as a global, system-wide, loss-given-default (LGD) concept rather than a probability of default (PD) concept.” Consistent with the G-SIB methodology, the Committee is of the view that D-SIBs should also be assessed in terms of the potential impact of their failure on the relevant reference system. One implication of this is that to the extent that D-SIB indicators are included in any methodology, they should primarily relate to “impact of failure” measures and not “risk of failure” measures.

Principle 7: National authorities should publicly disclose information that provides an outline of the methodology employed to assess the systemic importance of banks in their domestic economy.

[Higher Loss Absorbency Principle 8] 31. The policy judgement on the level of HLA requirements should also be guided by country-specific factors which could include the degree of concentration in the banking sector or the size of the banking sector relative to GDP. Specifically, countries that have a larger banking sector relative to GDP are more likely to suffer larger direct economic impacts of the failure of a D-SIB than those with smaller banking sectors. While size-to-GDP is easy to calculate, the concentration of the banking sector could also be considered (as a failure in a medium-sized highly concentrated banking sector would likely create more of an impact on the domestic economy than if it were to occur in a larger, more widely dispersed banking sector).

[Higher Loss Absorbency Principle 10] 40. The Committee is of the view that any form of double-counting should be avoided and that the HLA requirements derived from the G-SIB and D-SIB frameworks should not be additive. This will ensure the overall consistency between the two frameworks and allows the D-SIB framework to take the complementary perspective to the G-SIB framework.

Principle 12: The HLA requirement should be met fully by Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1). In addition, national authorities should put in place any additional requirements and other policy measures they consider to be appropriate to address the risks posed by a D-SIB.

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