The Need for 'Un-Consolidating' Consolidated Banks' Stress Tests
22 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2013
Date Written: December 2012
Abstract
The recent crisis has spurred the use of stress tests as a (crisis) management and early warning tool. However, a weakness is that they omit potential risks embedded in the banking groups™ geographical structures by assuming that capital and liquidity are available wherever they are needed within the group. This assumption neglects the fact that regulations differ across countries (e.g., minimum capital requirements), and, more importantly, that home/host regulators might limit flows of capital or liquidity within a group during periods of stress. This study presents a framework on how to integrate this risk element into stress tests, and provides illustrative calculations on the size of the potential adjustments needed in the presence of some limits on intragroup flows for banks included in the June 2011 EBA stress tests.
Keywords: Stress testing, International banks, Banking sector, Cross-border banking, Stability, Ring-fencing, Subsidiaries, banking, subsidiaries, capital adequacy, bank data, banking system, excess liquidity, bank subsidiaries, banking sector, bank size, bank regulators, capital needs, banking supervision, banking stability, bank capital, bank solvency, tier 1 capital, banking authority, capital ratio, bank groups, capital market, capital markets, bank profit, bank structures, bank of international settlements, national bank, flows of capital, financial risk, bankers, bank structure, subordinated debt, banking operations, bank group, bank losses, bank activities, capital adequacy ratios, banks balanc
JEL Classification: F34, F36, G15, G21, G28
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation