Basel ii Accord Sections 422 to 443

4. Risk rating system operations
 
(i) Coverage of ratings
 
422. For corporate, sovereign, and bank exposures, each borrower and all recognised
guarantors must be assigned a rating and each exposure must be associated with a facility
rating as part of the loan approval process. Similarly, for retail, each exposure must be
assigned to a pool as part of the loan approval process.
 
423. Each separate legal entity to which the bank is exposed must be separately rated. A
bank must have policies acceptable to its supervisor regarding the treatment of individual
entities in a connected group including circumstances under which the same rating may or
may not be assigned to some or all related entities.
 
(ii) Integrity of rating process
 
Standards for corporate, sovereign, and bank exposures
 
424. Rating assignments and periodic rating reviews must be completed or approved by
a party that does not directly stand to benefit from the extension of credit. Independence of
the rating assignment process can be achieved through a range of practices that will be
carefully reviewed by supervisors. These operational processes must be documented in the
bank’s procedures and incorporated into bank policies. Credit policies and underwriting
procedures must reinforce and foster the independence of the rating process.
 
425. Borrowers and facilities must have their ratings refreshed at least on an annual
basis. Certain credits, especially higher risk borrowers or problem exposures, must be
subject to more frequent review. In addition, banks must initiate a new rating if material
information on the borrower or facility comes to light.
 
426. The bank must have an effective process to obtain and update relevant and material
information on the borrower’s financial condition, and on facility characteristics that affect
LGDs and EADs (such as the condition of collateral). Upon receipt, the bank needs to have a procedure to update the borrower’s rating in a timely fashion.
 
Standards for retail exposures
 
427. A bank must review the loss characteristics and delinquency status of each
identified risk pool on at least an annual basis. It must also review the status of individual
borrowers within each pool as a means of ensuring that exposures continue to be assigned
to the correct pool. This requirement may be satisfied by review of a representative sample
of exposures in the pool.
 
(iii) Overrides
 
428. For rating assignments based on expert judgement, banks must clearly articulate
the situations in which bank officers may override the outputs of the rating process, including how and to what extent such overrides can be used and by whom. For model-based ratings, the bank must have guidelines and processes for monitoring cases where human judgement has overridden the model’s rating, variables were excluded or inputs were altered. These guidelines must include identifying personnel that are responsible for approving these overrides. Banks must identify overrides and separately track their performance.
 
(iv) Data maintenance
 
429. A bank must collect and store data on key borrower and facility characteristics to
provide effective support to its internal credit risk measurement and management process, to enable the bank to meet the other requirements in this document, and to serve as a basis for supervisory reporting.
 
These data should be sufficiently detailed to allow retrospective reallocation
of obligors and facilities to grades, for example if increasing sophistication of the
internal rating system suggests that finer segregation of portfolios can be achieved.
Furthermore, banks must collect and retain data on aspects of their internal ratings as
required under Pillar 3 of this Framework.
 
For corporate, sovereign, and bank exposures
 
430. Banks must maintain rating histories on borrowers and recognised guarantors,
including the rating since the borrower/guarantor was assigned an internal grade, the dates
the ratings were assigned, the methodology and key data used to derive the rating and the
person/model responsible. The identity of borrowers and facilities that default, and the timing and circumstances of such defaults, must be retained. Banks must also retain data on the PDs and realised default rates associated with rating grades and ratings migration in order to track the predictive power of the borrower rating system.
 
431. Banks using the advanced IRB approach must also collect and store a complete
history of data on the LGD and EAD estimates associated with each facility and the key data
used to derive the estimate and the person/model responsible. Banks must also collect data
on the estimated and realised LGDs and EADs associated with each defaulted facility.
 
Banks that reflect the credit risk mitigating effects of guarantees/credit derivatives through LGD must retain data on the LGD of the facility before and after evaluation of the effects of the guarantee/credit derivative. Information about the components of loss or recovery for each defaulted exposure must be retained, such as amounts recovered, source of recovery (e.g. collateral, liquidation proceeds and guarantees), time period required for recovery, and
administrative costs.
 
432. Banks under the foundation approach which utilise supervisory estimates are
encouraged to retain the relevant data (i.e. data on loss and recovery experience for
corporate exposures under the foundation approach, data on realised losses for banks using
the supervisory slotting criteria for SL).
 
For retail exposures
 
433. Banks must retain data used in the process of allocating exposures to pools,
including data on borrower and transaction risk characteristics used either directly or through use of a model, as well as data on delinquency. Banks must also retain data on the
estimated PDs, LGDs and EADs, associated with pools of exposures. For defaulted
exposures, banks must retain the data on the pools to which the exposure was assigned
over the year prior to default and the realised outcomes on LGD and EAD.
 
(v) Stress tests used in assessment of capital adequacy
 
434. An IRB bank must have in place sound stress testing processes for use in the
assessment of capital adequacy. Stress testing must involve identifying possible events or
future changes in economic conditions that could have unfavourable effects on a bank’s
credit exposures and assessment of the bank’s ability to withstand such changes. Examples
of scenarios that could be used are
(i) economic or industry downturns;
(ii) market-risk
events; and
(iii) liquidity conditions.
 
435. In addition to the more general tests described above, the bank must perform a
credit risk stress test to assess the effect of certain specific conditions on its IRB regulatory
capital requirements. The test to be employed would be one chosen by the bank, subject to
supervisory review. The test to be employed must be meaningful and reasonably
conservative.
 
Individual banks may develop different approaches to undertaking this stress
test requirement, depending on their circumstances. For this purpose, the objective is not to
require banks to consider worst-case scenarios. The bank’s stress test in this context should,
however, consider at least the effect of mild recession scenarios. In this case, one example
might be to use two consecutive quarters of zero growth to assess the effect on the bank’s
PDs, LGDs and EADs, taking account — on a conservative basis — of the bank’s
international diversification.
 
435 (i) Banks using the double default framework must consider as part of their stress
testing framework the impact of a deterioration in the credit quality of protection providers, in particular the impact of protection providers falling outside the eligibility criteria due to rating changes.
 
Banks should also consider the impact of the default of one but not both of the obligor and protection provider, and the consequent increase in risk and capital requirements at the time of that default.
 
436. Whatever method is used, the bank must include a consideration of the following
sources of information. First, a bank’s own data should allow estimation of the ratings
migration of at least some of its exposures. Second, banks should consider information about
the impact of smaller deterioration in the credit environment on a bank’s ratings, giving some information on the likely effect of bigger, stress circumstances. Third, banks should evaluate evidence of ratings migration in external ratings. This would include the bank broadly matching its buckets to rating categories.
 
437. National supervisors may wish to issue guidance to their banks on how the tests to
be used for this purpose should be designed, bearing in mind conditions in their jurisdiction.
The results of the stress test may indicate no difference in the capital calculated under the
IRB rules described in this section of this Framework if the bank already uses such an
approach for its internal rating purposes. Where a bank operates in several markets, it does
not need to test for such conditions in all of those markets, but a bank should stress
portfolios containing the vast majority of its total exposures.
 
5. Corporate governance and oversight
 
(i) Corporate governance
 
438. All material aspects of the rating and estimation processes must be approved by the
bank’s board of directors or a designated committee thereof and senior management. (87)
These parties must possess a general understanding of the bank’s risk rating system and
detailed comprehension of its associated management reports. Senior management must
provide notice to the board of directors or a designated committee thereof of material
changes or exceptions from established policies that will materially impact the operations of
the bank’s rating system.
 
(87) This standard refers to a management structure composed of a board of directors and senior management. The Committee is aware that there are significant differences in legislative and regulatory frameworks across countries as regards the functions of the board of directors and senior management. In some countries, the board has the main, if not exclusive, function of supervising the executive body (senior management, general management) so as to ensure that the latter fulfils its tasks. For this reason, in some cases, it is known as a supervisory board.
 
This means that the board has no executive functions. In other countries, by contrast, the
board has a broader competence in that it lays down the general framework for the management of the bank. Owing to these differences, the notions of the board of directors and senior management are used in this paper not to identify legal constructs but rather to label two decision-making functions within a bank.
 
439. Senior management also must have a good understanding of the rating system’s
design and operation, and must approve material differences between established procedure
and actual practice. Management must also ensure, on an ongoing basis, that the rating
system is operating properly. Management and staff in the credit control function must meet
regularly to discuss the performance of the rating process, areas needing improvement, and
the status of efforts to improve previously identified deficiencies.
 
440. Internal ratings must be an essential part of the reporting to these parties. Reporting
must include risk profile by grade, migration across grades, estimation of the relevant
parameters per grade, and comparison of realised default rates (and LGDs and EADs for
banks on advanced approaches) against expectations. Reporting frequencies may vary with
the significance and type of information and the level of the recipient.
 
(ii) Credit risk control
 
441. Banks must have independent credit risk control units that are responsible for the
design or selection, implementation and performance of their internal rating systems. The
unit(s) must be functionally independent from the personnel and management functions
responsible for originating exposures. Areas of responsibility must include:
 
Testing and monitoring internal grades;
 
Production and analysis of summary reports from the bank’s rating system, to
include historical default data sorted by rating at the time of default and one year
prior to default, grade migration analyses, and monitoring of trends in key rating
criteria;
 
Implementing procedures to verify that rating definitions are consistently applied
across departments and geographic areas;
 
Reviewing and documenting any changes to the rating process, including the
reasons for the changes; and
 
Reviewing the rating criteria to evaluate if they remain predictive of risk. Changes to
the rating process, criteria or individual rating parameters must be documented and
retained for supervisors to review.
 
442. A credit risk control unit must actively participate in the development, selection,
implementation and validation of rating models. It must assume oversight and supervision
responsibilities for any models used in the rating process, and ultimate responsibility for the
ongoing review and alterations to rating models.
 
(iii) Internal and external audit
 
443. Internal audit or an equally independent function must review at least annually the
bank’s rating system and its operations, including the operations of the credit function and
the estimation of PDs, LGDs and EADs. Areas of review include adherence to all applicable
minimum requirements. Internal audit must document its findings. Some national supervisors may also require an external audit of the bank’s rating assignment process and estimation of loss characteristics.
  
 

 

 

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