Risk Management, PRMIA

A key consultation being around the Basel II NPR guidance with the formula for LGD computation. My recent relocation to the West Coast, reignited the curiosity about the USA Basel II journey. This blog entry serves as much as a summary note to myself to understand the complexities involved as it serves as a quick summary for others wanting to know where US Basel II is headed.

The US Basel II roadmap proposes the advanced approaches for computing risk-based regulatory capital for the largest US banks numbering around 20, and permits the smaller and mid size domestic banks numbering around 9000 to continue to conform to flavour of Basel I. The Basel II NPR proposal includes a formula to relate LGD and the expected LGD (ELGD), in the Basel II Supervisory review of Capital Adequacy in Pillar II. Some believe that this is overly conservative limiting the capital reduction benefit for the US banks.
Some of the specific concerns on NPR being:

- Poposed safegaurds in NPR that go beyond the BIS Basel II text,including the effect on risk sensitivity that may result from the proposed limit on declines in aggregate capital
- Proposed definition of default and treatment of downturn LGDs
- Retention of the existing leverage ratio

Also in 2006 a group of large US banks jointly requested the US regulators to allow “alternative appropriate methodologies” including standardized approach for Credit Risk and operational risk, as a possible fallback plan.

Early this year in February, the US regulatory Agencies collectively released three interagency supervisory guidance proposals as companion guides to NPR detailing how the Agencies intend to implement the Basel II NPR and sets their expectations for the credit risk and operational risk approaches under the proposed Basel II framework. These 3 proposed guidance were focused on: IRB-A for Credit Risk, AMA for Op risk and the new Pillar II Internal Capital adequacy assessment process (ICAAP). ICAAP should identify and measure material risks, set capital goals related to risks, and provide governane and controls to ensure that internal capital assessments are subject to proper oversight.

The May 29 deadline for the comments on these guidance documents has gone past and the Congress appointed Govt. Accountability Office(GAO) has also given the “Go ahead but with extreme caution” signal for planning the Basel II transition.

Albeit the final journey is yet to start, these developments set the stage for the US Basel II guidance and transition to enter the critical final phase.

Sources: Basel II NPR & Proposed Supervisory Guidance documents from US Agencies:Board (Fed Reserve System), OCC, FDIC, OTS, Treasury.