G28 - Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and RegulationReturn

European legislation for the prudential regulation of insurance and reinsurance sector has existed since the 1970s, gradually materialized in Directive 92/49/EEC and Directive 2002/83/EC, both known as Solvency I. Due to economic and political development the regime become insufficient and therefore in 2009 was adopted the Directive 2009/138/EC known as Solvency II, which represents a crucial modernization of European insurance regulation. Each of these regimes prescribes its own rules for the valuation of assets, liabilities and available capital to cover regulatory solvency requirement. This paper is focused on detection of conditions set up for valuation of assets and liabilities under each of the regime and to outline the calculation of available capital under each of the model.

We estimate the required increase in banks' lending spreads assuming that banks under regulatory pressure would raise lending spreads to prevent ROE from falling when the capital regulation is tightened. We focus our analysis on six Czech banks that are under regulatory pressure, and are therefore the ones most affected by the increased capital requirement. We follow the mapping methodology presented by King (2010). We find that the required increase in lending spreads to keep ROE from falling totals 6.3 basis points. We conclude that the impact of tightened capital regulation on lending spreads in the Czech banking sector is minor. If shareholders decide to absorb some of the fall in ROE, or they take other measures to prevent a fall in ROE, the potential impact on lending spreads will be even smaller.

Uninsurable risks have significant impact on expenses of private and public sectors of economy. In spite of several commercial insurance products and high quality of insurance services current trend of insurance industry is set to define exceptions of insurance protection. The highest losses caused by realization of uninsurable risks in the Czech Republic are constituted by consequences of floods, deluges and overflows. Recent history of flood occurrence emphasizes insufficiency of prevention, protection and loss solution. Due to these risk factors we have focused our research on issues of uninsurable risks in conditions of the Czech insurance market. The system solution is based on fund approach to ensure commercial insurance protection. Multi-Source System Solution of Uninsurable Risks is purposed in the form of fund with participation of the state authority. Our solution depends on pool creation and primarily should cover enormous claims development. Assumption of fund profitability encourages insurer motivation to become a pool member. Important part of research represents calculation of gross premium. Assessment of input data and calculation of premium are based on real published data and conform to real market development in the Czech Republic. Calculations are also based on our estimations of risk development. This research highlights the importance of uninsurable risks solution. Effective instrument able to protect lives and property is an innovative commercial insurance product. Our commercial solution is a way to strengthen the role of insurance in a field of uninsurable risks. The system solution is designed to conditions of the Czech insurance market and takes into account special domestic factors. We suppose that our solution is possible to be adopted in conditions of any insurance market in case of relevant data and risk factors using.

The article deals with the liquidity risk in the banks in the context of the financial crisis. At first, the balance sheet and market liquidity are defined and the main principles of the methods for measuring liquidity risk, which banks use, are identified. Then follow review of main challenges of managing the liquidity of banks. Finally, it discusses qualitative regulatory requirements and eligibility of newly formulated standards with regard to minimum liquidity in general and in relation to the Czech banking sector in particular.

The paper proposes an application of the survival time analysis methodology to estimations of the Loss Given Default (LGD) parameter. The main advantage of the survival analysis approach compared to classical regression methods is that it allows exploiting partial recovery data. The model is also modified in order to improve performance of the appropriate goodness of fit measures. The empirical testing shows that the Cox proportional model applied to LGD modeling performs better than the linear and logistic regressions. In addition a significant improvement is achieved with the modified "pseudo" Cox LGD model

The paper provides an overview of the Exposure at Default (EAD) definition, requirements, and estimation methods as set by the Basel II regulation. A new methodology connected to the intensity of default modeling is proposed. The numerical examples show that various estimation techniques may lead to quite different results with intensity of default based model being recommended as the most faithful with respect to a precise probabilistic definition of the EAD parameter.

This paper describes the major issues in the clearing of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives and the current regulative initiatives aimed at removing the market opaqueness. The core of the paper is the comparison of the US Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). The similarities and the major differences of these two regulative approaches are emphasized. The major similarities between EMIR and the Dodd-Frank Act relate to the mandatory clearing for standardized contracts, the scope of the derivatives covered, the exemptions from clearing for end-users and the reporting of cleared and uncleared derivative transactions by nearly all financial counterparties. The major differences arise with the restrictions on bank proprietary trading, with separation of derivative trading activities from commercial banking activities, with central counterparties (CCP) ownership rules and with the establishment of mandatory exchange trading requirement.

The application, or to be more precise, the misapplication of securitization in the mortgage market had fatal consequences for the financial sector worldwide. More over securitization techniques enabled single banks to reduce their individual risk while at the same time transferred greater risk to the financial system. Meanwhile a lot was written on the causes for the recent financial crisis. In most cases inadequate ratings provided by the credit rating agencies and different principal agency problems were addressed. I argue that international and national financial supervisors established an inadequate framework for financial regulation and supervision, and among other failures, even supported credit rating agencies to further establish their businesses. Further on, I argue that early warning indicators of systemic risk in the financial sector and signs of the coming turmoil were irresponsibly ignored at the time they were perceived. What turned obvious during and after the recent financial turmoil is that capital regulation failed to reach its main goal - ensuring stability of the financial system. In particular, securitization and related credit risk transfer products were adequately treated neither in Basel I nor in Basel II. With the development of both Basel Accords capital ratios became the center of banking regulation. However, capital ratios are obviously not sufficient as a measure for a systemic financial stability. It is time to ask if the developments in Basel II are the right way of banking regulation and supervision and in particular, if capital ratios can be the centre of banking regulation?

The Basle II parameter called Loss Given Default (LGD) aims to estimate the expected losses on not yet defaulted accounts in the case of default. Banks firstly need to collect historical recovery data, discount the recovery income and cost cash flow to the time of default, and calculate historical recovery rates and LGDs. One of the puzzling tasks is to determine an appropriate discount rate which is very vaguely characterized by the regulation. This paper proposes a market consistent methodology for the LGD discount rate determination based on estimation of the systematic, i.e. undiversifiable, recovery risk and a cost of the risk.