Balance Sheet Management Research Articles

Bank liquidity risk management through stable and volatile markets: The role of the asset-liability committee and lessons learned for the balance sheet governance operating model

This study examines the balance sheet management governance operating model of selected failed banks from 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2023, with emphasis on the corporate governance structure in place and the position of the asset-liability committee (ALCO), and draws conclusions and recommendations for future policy. All failed sample banks exhibited near-identical governance frameworks for management and oversight of balance sheet risk: namely an ALCO that reported to the senior executive management committee, and was at least two levels, if not three levels, below board level. It is inferred that, as the ultimate responsible and accountable forum for ensuring balance sheet viability and continuing going concern of the bank, the board would benefit from being closer to the balance sheet risk management process. This implies changing the governance structure such that the ALCO is closer to the board itself, and able to provide direct comfort to the board that the bank's capital and liquidity risks are being managed appropriately. The following bank governance measures are recommended, to be imposed by regulatory fiat if necessary: •Direct delegated authority of the ALCO to manage the balance sheet, from a long-term robustness and viability perspective, directly on behalf of the board. •The ALCO to report directly to the board, rather than via the executive management committee (or as an alternative approach, changed to become a sub-committee of the board). This recognises that the asset-liability management (ALM) discipline is at least as important as, if not more important than, the ‘audit’ oversight function undertaken by the board audit committee. •Technical expertise at ALCO and board level that is capable of discerning the genuine capital and liquidity risk exposure position of the bank, on a medium-term forward-looking basis, at all times.

Bank's balance sheet management as a bargaining tool: Evidence from Brazilian labor strikes

We investigate whether and how banks adjust their financial positions in the wake of labor strikes. Using hand-collected data at the bank-municipality level in Brazil during 2006–2016, we find that banks significantly increase loan loss provisions, reduce loans disbursed, and hold less liquidity just before the bank labor strikes. These results are consistent with a bargaining hypothesis, suggesting that banks account for fewer current earnings, reduce expected cash flows, and reveal less cash and cash equivalents to labor unions before the anticipated strikes to counter the rent-seeking behavior of unions and strengthen their bargaining power in upcoming wage negotiations.

Implementation of Straight Term, Weighted Average, and Term Weighted Matched-Maturity Fund Transfer Pricing (FTP) on Indonesian Bank

Transfer pricing in the banking industry has a huge impact on maintaining risks and strategic decision-making for preserving competitive advantage in the market. As a best practice, the bank owns an Asset & Liabilities Management (ALM) function assigned to control internal pricing, named Fund Transfer Pricing (FTP), to regulate the inter-division fund pricing between the Funding Division and the Lending Division. While the FTP implementation provisions of a bank are not regulated due to management’s appetite, the FTP calculation methods are definitively established based on several research studies. The most sophisticated method is named Match-Maturity, by reason of matching every banking product’s tenor to the yield curve and calculating them by the repayment behavior. This paper aims to study the significance of the Match-Maturity FTP (MM-FTP) method on a bank in Indonesia which currently apply the Multiple-Pool FTP (MP-FTP) method. To achieve the set objective, the study performed the FTP calculation of identical banking products including samples and all population utilizing MP-FTP and MM-FTP. The result shows 10 out of 11 groups of product and segment experienced over-charged or over-credited employing MP-FTP, which lead to inaccurate evaluation of balance sheet management and performance measurement.

Tax and Balance Sheet Valuation of Sale and Leaseback in the Books of Lessee. Case Study

Purpose: The aim of this academic article is to analyze and evaluate the tax and balance sheet valuation of sale-and-leaseback agreements for lessees, based on a case study. Sale and leaseback, being one of the financing methods, allows companies to increase their financial liquidity and optimize asset management. The subject of the study is the impact of this method on the tax situation and balance sheet of the company. Design/methodology/approach: In the article, a detailed description of sale-and-leaseback agreements, their advantages, and legal and economic consequences is presented. The research is based on a case study of a real company that decided to implement a sale-and-leaseback agreement in order to improve its financial situation. Findings: As a result of the research, the author identifies key aspects related to the tax and balance sheet valuation of sale-and-leaseback agreements and presents practical recommendations for entrepreneurs. Through the analysis, the author demonstrates that sale and leaseback has an impact on the financial performance of a company as well as its tax burden. It is also shown that proper preparation and implementation of a lease agreement can lead to favorable tax and balance sheet effects, which translates into increased competitiveness of the company in the market. Moreover, the study results indicate the need to consider the specifics of sale and leaseback when developing a company’s financial strategy and maintaining accounting records. Research limitations/implications: The results are based on the analysis of a single company, which may limit their overall representativeness. As a result, the conclusions may not be fully transferable to other organizations, especially those with different structures, sizes, or industries. Originality/value: The value of the study lies in combining theoretical knowledge with economic practice, which translates into useful recommendations for entrepreneurs and financial advisors. The obtained results allow for a better understanding of sale and leaseback as a financial tool and its impact on the competitiveness of companies. Moreover, the study highlights the importance of proper preparation and implementation of lease agreements and points to possibilities for optimizing tax and balance sheet management in the context of sale and leaseback. The article makes an original contribution to the literature by exploring the practical implications of sale and leaseback for lessees and developing an understanding of the associated tax and balance sheet consequences, serving as a valuable reference point for future research in this area.

MDB Loans: A New Asset Class for CLOs

Use of structured financings for balance sheet management by multilateral development banks (MDBs) is still in its infancy. Three path-breaking deals by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) are leading the way, however. The two AfDB deals are both synthetic, with the loans remaining on the balance sheet despite substantial risk transfers. The IFC transaction allows co-funding of private sector loans with other lenders. New insights and opportunities will certainly emerge with rising experience in MDB loan deals. A few imperatives for a robust MDB collateralized loan obligation (CLO) market are already evident: (i) public disclosure of the relevant parts of proprietary historical MDB loan performance data; (ii) more-transparent rating agency criteria for MDB securitizations, and (iii) greater management, investor, banker, and MDB expertise in this asset class.

Banks’ Balance Sheet Management as a Bargaining Tool: Evidence from Union Strikes

Banks’ Balance Sheet Management as a Bargaining Tool: Evidence from Union Strikes

Bank balance sheet risk allocation

We formulate the optimal balance sheet management problem as a linear program and study it using a duality approach. In addition to helping determine the optimal balance sheet, the dual problem also provides us the interest rate risk and credit risk pricing. We deploy our methodology to determine premia on credit risk and interest rate risk for commercial banks, which allows us to manage the risk allocation for a bank given a risk budget. Moreover, our approach will be of interest to regulators, who can use it to assess the price of credit and interest rate risk at each point in the economic cycle. Finally, we apply this methodology to real data and show how it can be used in a real-world setting, using diversification constraints and a greedy algorithm that results in the optimal asset-liability allocation.

Moroccan Participatory Banks in the Era of the Covid-19 International Health Crisis

Apart from the paralysis of the real estate sector and the closure of notaries and concessionaires, the economic situation of customers which is in decline because of the crisis weighs heavily on the activity of participatory banks. Therefore, in Morocco, like all other industries, the participatory banking industry has suffered from the onset of the state of health emergency and total containment of citizens, due to the “COVID-19” health crisis. But participatory banks are relatively better off than conventional banks. However, our present article aims to present the state of play of the said participatory banks a priori and post-mortem of the health crisis in the Moroccan financial fabric, taking into account the measures taken by the monetary authorities at national and international level. Furthermore, a descriptive, understandable and explanatory methodology has been adopted on the basis of a qualitative approach, which aims to identify the concrete situation involving a particular phenomenon. It is therefore a question of understanding and describing the situation of participating banks in the Moroccan banking system during the so-called “COVID-19”. Indeed, by giving meaning to our problem through observation, description and interpretation, by appreciating their context as it presents itself and by providing content data. However, Moroccan participatory banks are called upon to make more sustained efforts in mobilizing savings, in particular by proposing a daily offer of services from the bank that must be competitive, while relying on the affinity that distinguishes it from the classic offer. Moreover, the Moroccan participatory banks still suffer from a significant imbalance in balance sheet management due to several factors. However, this crisis situation was inevitable, but the Moroccan monetary authorities hope that it will only be temporary and that things will return to order as they go.

A Comprehensive Approach to the Capital Requirements Based on EVA

We propose a holistic approach to balance sheet management to show how banks can meet both regulatory capital (proposed under Basel III) and shareholders’ wealth simultaneously. Using the consolidated balance sheet, this work outlines a methodology for mapping between targeted credit risks based capital ratio and economic value added by which banks can predict their optimal balance sheet. The results of this study are as follows. First, using an ex-ante approach, we predict the optimized balance sheet in each year from the previous year's data. By imposing the restriction of a maximum of 5% possible changes in the balance sheet items compared to the real changes, we could make an optimized balance sheet in which we predict more EVA with the same capital ratio compared to the real performance in each year. Second, in the ex-post approach, we use the optimized balance sheet items predicted by the ex-ante approach and assume that if this optimized balance sheet is used by the bank in practice, how much more EVA will be gained. The results show that in this approach (the ex-post approach), we could generate more EVA. It means that if the bank had used this optimized balance sheet in practice, it could have made more EVA. Robustness tests also support our main results when we impose more restrictions on the analysis.

SPE Technical Directors’ Outlook - The Industry’s Transformation in 2020 and What It Means for the Future

For an industry in which terms like “first ever,” “unparalleled,” “unprecedented,” and “novel” are often over-used to the point of losing their meaning, 2020 hit hard with the true meaning of those words as the COVID-19 pandemic exploded onto the world and disrupted almost everything about life as we knew it. The oil and gas industry, which had begun showing signs of recovery from a generational downturn, was hit particularly hard. Jobs were lost, companies shuttered, and supply chains upended. But the same combination of audacity and ingenuity that has driven the industry for over a century took hold quickly. Oil and gas people love - and need - to network, share ideas, transfer and apply technology, and gather intelligence. So, when in-person conferences, workshops, and tradeshows were suddenly canceled or indefinitely postponed, entities such as the Society of Petroleum Engineers scrambled to use digital technology to take those events online and make them virtual. While not a perfect replacement, virtual online events offer some unique advantages, as SPE technical directors pointed out in their annual roundup. Digitalization, long a controversial topic among many in the upstream sector, is now being called essential by the directors across the six SPE technical disciplines they lead. Automation is mentioned frequently in the directors’ comments as a growing contributor to efficiency and risk reduction. Capital discipline, balance sheet management, and cash flow are seen as crucial, as are collaboration (both internal and external) and value - ranging from core values to value-driven data, to provable, value-based outcomes. Agility and the ability to comply with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria have taken on new importance. So has work - how and where we do it, and how we balance it with other aspects of life. Knowledge dissemination is considered more important than ever. Uncertainty continues to characterize the upstream sector, even more so than before the pandemic, but at least one thing is certain: The work of the industry, and the way in which people who comprise it work, is forever changed. The SPE technical disciplines and the directors who lead them are as follows. Completions - Terry Palisch, CARBO Ceramics Data Science and Engineering Analytics - Silviu Livescu, Baker Hughes Drilling - David Reid, NOV HSE and Sustainability - Annamaria Petrone, Eni Production and Facilities - Robert Pearson, Glynn Resources Reservoir - Erdal Ozkan, Colorado School of Mines Here, they reflect on a truly unprecedented year and share their outlooks for their disciplines going forward.

Modeling nonmaturing deposits: a framework for interest and liquidity risk management

We present a generic framework for modeling nonmaturing deposits that can be used by banks for interest and liquidity risk management, funds transfer pricing and dynamic balance sheet management. The framework is split up into the modeling of the fraction of funds held in different deposit categories, which captures cashflows between products, and the modeling of the sight and time deposit rates. Combining these different components, together with assumptions on market share for individual institutions as well as the growth of the money supply, the framework then predicts the institution-specific balance composition of deposits under different interest rate scenarios. We calibrate the model framework on UK industry corporate sight and time deposit balance series published by the Bank of England, and present forecasts obtained under different interest rate scenarios.

Optimal Monetary Policy with an Occasionally Binding ZLB and Central Bank Asset Purchases

We derive optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with central bank asset purchases, accounting for an occasionally binding zero lower bound, ZLB, on the policy rate. Potential gains to central bank asset purchases arise with the policy rate away from the ZLB due to a constraint on the financial sector. Optimal central bank balance sheet management eliminates ZLB dampening of supply shocks and ZLB amplification of demand shocks. In simulations calibrated to match United States data, the average ZLB event length falls by 25%, and the prevalence of ZLB events falls by 75% with optimal monetary policy.

Public Sector Balance Sheet Database

This paper provides an overview of the Public Sector Balance Sheet (PSBS) Database, a dataset developed in the context of the October 2018 Fiscal Monitor. The dataset provides a comprehensive picture of public wealth for 38 countries, and a narrower picture for further 37 countries and territories. Comprehensive PSBSs bring together all the accumulated assets and liabilities that governments control, including public corporations, natural resources, and pension liabilities. They therefore account for the entirety of what the state owns and owes, offering a broader fiscal picture beyond debt and deficits. This is particularly relevant in the current context of record and still rising debts and heightened risks to the balance sheet of the public sector. PSBSs bring about greater transparency and allow closer scrutiny of government’s financial position. They also allow better balance sheet management, thereby potentially increasing return on assets, reducing risks and the costs of borrowing, and improving fiscal policymaking. The paper also elaborates on the conceptual framework and methodology used in compiling the data, and provides some practical guidelines on the compilation, validation, and dissemination of such data.

Procyclical leverage in Europe and its role in asset pricing

Since the global financial crisis a growing literature stresses that financial intermediaries balance sheet management may reinforce financial market shocks with severe consequences for the real sector of the economy. In this paper we provide empirical evidence for this view from European and German asset markets. GMM estimations as well as dynamic asset pricing models reveal that broker–dealer leverage is procyclical with a positive price of risk and also forecasts future asset returns. Overall, our results provide evidence in favor of the importance of broker-dealers as marginal investors in asset markets.

A Note of Trading the Term Structure of VIX Futures

The term structure of VIX futures contains a very strong signal of dealer risk appetite. Unlike balance sheet quantities, this feature is available at very high frequencies. Here we exhibit two systematic strategies to mine the attendant risk premium from the term structure of expected volatility. We optimize our two hyper-parameters by OOS cross-validation. We compare our strategies to holding the S&P 500, selling short-term vol un-hedged, and a portfolio that sells short-term vol and hedges by going long on medium-term vol. We find that our strategies allow us to harvest a considerable portion of the risk premium associated with the balance sheet management of market-based intermediaries. Both in-sample and OOS, the risk-adjusted returns on our strategies are at least twice as high as the three benchmarks.

SeLFIES: A New Pension Bond and Currency for Retirement

There is a looming retirement crisis, as individuals are increasingly being asked to take responsibility for their own retirement planning and a majority of these individuals are financially unsophisticated. They cannot perform basic compounding calculations and do not understand the impact of inflation, both critical aspects of retirement planning. Yet, these individuals are being tasked with the responsibility for three complex, interconnected decisions: how much to save, how to invest (with many additional decisions), and how to decumulate one’s portfolio at retirement. Compounding these challenges, current financial instruments and products (e.g. T-Bills, TIPs, or Target Date Funds) are risky because they focus on the wrong goal - wealth at retirement, as opposed to how much retirement income can be guaranteed to support pre-retirement standard-of-living. Moreover, annuities are complex, costly, and illiquid and seldom used. Without financial innovation and a change in the metric for measuring retirement success, many individuals will retire poor – a financially and socially undesirable outcome for any country. This paper presents an easy, quick and efficient solution for countries to address all these challenges and improve retirement security by creating and issuing an innovative new bond – SeLFIES (Standard-of-Living indexed, Forward-starting, Income-only Securities). The SeLFIES bond is a single, liquid, low-cost, low-risk instrument, easy-to-understand for even the most financially unsophisticated individual, because it embeds accumulation, decumulation, compounding and inflation-adjustments. SeLFIES is good for governments too, as the bond lowers the risk of individuals retiring poor, improves balance sheet management, and funds infrastructure. The paper also discusses key design aspects of SeLFIES to show how they can ensure longevity risk protection and hedge standard-of-living risk, a key unmanaged risk globally today. Additionally, the paper by concludes by demonstrating the universality of the SeLFIES design as well as by showing how it serves a useful purpose by becoming the “currency of retirement.”

Public Sector Balance Sheet Database: Overview and Guide for Compilers and Users

This paper provides an overview of the Public Sector Balance Sheet (PSBS) Database, a dataset developed in the context of the October 2018 Fiscal Monitor. The dataset provides a comprehensive picture of public wealth for 38 countries, and a narrower picture for further 37 countries and territories. Comprehensive PSBSs bring together all the accumulated assets and liabilities that governments control, including public corporations, natural resources, and pension liabilities. They therefore account for the entirety of what the state owns and owes, offering a broader fiscal picture beyond debt and deficits. This is particularly relevant in the current context of record and still rising debts and heightened risks to the balance sheet of the public sector. PSBSs bring about greater transparency and allow closer scrutiny of government's financial position. They also allow better balance sheet management, thereby potentially increasing return on assets, reducing risks and the costs of borrowing, and improving fiscal policymaking. The paper also elaborates on the conceptual framework and methodology used in compiling the data, and provides some practical guidelines on the compilation, validation, and dissemination of such data.

What's in a name? Purchases and Sales of Financial Assets As a Monetary Policy Instrument

Large-scale asset purchases are now a conventional tool for monetary policymakers. In August 2019, Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion began for the first time since December 2015, with the federal funds rate away from the zero lower bound (ZLB). The Federal Reserve expanded the balance sheet by $400 billion by the end of 2019. This paper studies active balance sheet management by the Federal Reserve with the federal funds rate away from and at the ZLB. Purchases and sales of financial assets allow the Federal Reserve to simultaneously stabilize financial markets, thus moderate long-term interest rates, and pursue the dual mandate. At the ZLB, active financial asset portfolio management alleviates the effects of the constraint on the federal funds rate.

Bank Balance Sheet Risk Allocation

We formulate the optimal balance sheet management problem as a linear program and study it using a duality approach. In addition to helping to determine the optimal balance sheet, the dual problem also provides us the market prices of interest rate risk and credit risk. Our methodology is used to determine premia on credit risk and interest rate risk for commercial banks, which in turn allows us to manage the risk allocation for a bank given a risk budget. Moreover, our approach will be of interest to regulators, who can use it to assess the market price of credit and interest rate risk at each point in the economic cycle. Finally, we apply this methodology to real data and show how it can be used to a real setting, using diversification constraints and a greedy algorithm that results in the optimal asset-liability allocation.

Oil Prices and Banking Instability: A Jump-Diffusion Model for Bank Capital Structure

We develop an empirical model of bank capital structure to study the impact of large oil shocks on overleveraging of banks which presents severe challenges for banks’ balance sheet management. The measure of overleveraging builds on the Stein (2012) model by adding a jump-diffusion component that captures the jump size and intensity of predictors such as oil prices and political instability. Overleveraging is derived and estimated for a sample of six banks in three oil-producing countries and Western countries using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, for the years 2006-2016. The estimation of the optimal debt shows that most of the banks in this context had a high optimal debt around 2008, overlapping with the oil price shock. In addition, most of the predictors, namely oil prices and political instability factors proxied by terrorism, political corruption, and military expenses, regularly appeared in volatility and jump intensity factors.