Basel ii Accord Sections 664 to 683

2. Advanced Measurement Approaches (AMA)
(i) General standards
 
664. In order to qualify for use of the AMA a bank must satisfy its supervisor that, at a
minimum:
 
Its board of directors and senior management, as appropriate, are actively involved
in the oversight of the operational risk management framework;
 
It has an operational risk management system that is conceptually sound and is
implemented with integrity; and
 
It has sufficient resources in the use of the approach in the major business lines as
well as the control and audit areas.
 
665. A bank’s AMA will be subject to a period of initial monitoring by its supervisor before
it can be used for regulatory purposes. This period will allow the supervisor to determine
whether the approach is credible and appropriate. As discussed below, a bank’s internal
measurement system must reasonably estimate unexpected losses based on the combined
use of internal and relevant external loss data, scenario analysis and bank-specific business
environment and internal control factors. The bank’s measurement system must also be
capable of supporting an allocation of economic capital for operational risk across business
lines in a manner that creates incentives to improve business line operational risk
management.
 
(ii) Qualitative standards
 
666. A bank must meet the following qualitative standards before it is permitted to use an
AMA for operational risk capital:
 
(a) The bank must have an independent operational risk management function that is
responsible for the design and implementation of the bank’s operational risk
management framework. The operational risk management function is responsible
for codifying firm-level policies and procedures concerning operational risk
management and controls; for the design and implementation of the firm’s
operational risk measurement methodology; for the design and implementation of a
risk-reporting system for operational risk; and for developing strategies to identify,
measure, monitor and control/mitigate operational risk.
 
(b) The bank’s internal operational risk measurement system must be closely integrated
into the day-to-day risk management processes of the bank. Its output must be an
integral part of the process of monitoring and controlling the bank’s operational risk
profile. For instance, this information must play a prominent role in risk reporting,
management reporting, internal capital allocation, and risk analysis. The bank must
have techniques for allocating operational risk capital to major business lines and for
creating incentives to improve the management of operational risk throughout the
firm.
 
(c) There must be regular reporting of operational risk exposures and loss experience
to business unit management, senior management, and to the board of directors.
The bank must have procedures for taking appropriate action according to the
information within the management reports.
 
(d) The bank’s operational risk management system must be well documented. The
bank must have a routine in place for ensuring compliance with a documented set of
internal policies, controls and procedures concerning the operational risk
management system, which must include policies for the treatment of noncompliance
issues.
 
(e) Internal and/or external auditors must perform regular reviews of the operational risk
management processes and measurement systems. This review must include both
the activities of the business units and of the independent operational risk
management function.
 
(f) The validation of the operational risk measurement system by external auditors
and/or supervisory authorities must include the following:
 
Verifying that the internal validation processes are operating in a satisfactory
manner; and
 
Making sure that data flows and processes associated with the risk measurement
system are transparent and accessible. In particular, it is necessary that auditors
and supervisory authorities are in a position to have easy access, whenever they
judge it necessary and under appropriate procedures, to the system’s specifications
and parameters.
 
(iii) Quantitative standards
 
AMA soundness standard
 
667. Given the continuing evolution of analytical approaches for operational risk, the
Committee is not specifying the approach or distributional assumptions used to generate the
operational risk measure for regulatory capital purposes. However, a bank must be able to
demonstrate that its approach captures potentially severe ‘tail’ loss events. Whatever
approach is used, a bank must demonstrate that its operational risk measure meets a
soundness standard comparable to that of the internal ratings-based approach for credit risk,
(i.e. comparable to a one year holding period and a 99.9th percentile confidence interval).
668. The Committee recognises that the AMA soundness standard provides significant
flexibility to banks in the development of an operational risk measurement and management
system. However, in the development of these systems, banks must have and maintain
rigorous procedures for operational risk model development and independent model
validation. Prior to implementation, the Committee will review evolving industry practices
regarding credible and consistent estimates of potential operational losses. It will also review
accumulated data, and the level of capital requirements estimated by the AMA, and may
refine its proposals if appropriate.
 
Detailed criteria
 
669. This section describes a series of quantitative standards that will apply to internallygenerated operational risk measures for purposes of calculating the regulatory minimum capital charge.
 
(a) Any internal operational risk measurement system must be consistent with the
scope of operational risk defined by the Committee in paragraph 644 and the loss
event types defined in Annex 9.
 
(b) Supervisors will require the bank to calculate its regulatory capital requirement as
the sum of expected loss (EL) and unexpected loss (UL), unless the bank can
demonstrate that it is adequately capturing EL in its internal business practices. That
is, to base the minimum regulatory capital requirement on UL alone, the bank must
be able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of its national supervisor that it has
measured and accounted for its EL exposure.
 
(c) A bank’s risk measurement system must be sufficiently ‘granular’ to capture the
major drivers of operational risk affecting the shape of the tail of the loss estimates.
 
(d) Risk measures for different operational risk estimates must be added for purposes
of calculating the regulatory minimum capital requirement. However, the bank may
be permitted to use internally determined correlations in operational risk losses
across individual operational risk estimates, provided it can demonstrate to the
satisfaction of the national supervisor that its systems for determining correlations
are sound, implemented with integrity, and take into account the uncertainty
surrounding any such correlation estimates (particularly in periods of stress). The
bank must validate its correlation assumptions using appropriate quantitative and
qualitative techniques.
 
(e) Any operational risk measurement system must have certain key features to meet
the supervisory soundness standard set out in this section. These elements must
include the use of internal data, relevant external data, scenario analysis and factors
reflecting the business environment and internal control systems.
 
(f) A bank needs to have a credible, transparent, well-documented and verifiable
approach for weighting these fundamental elements in its overall operational risk
measurement system. For example, there may be cases where estimates of the
99.9th percentile confidence interval based primarily on internal and external loss
event data would be unreliable for business lines with a heavy-tailed loss distribution
and a small number of observed losses. In such cases, scenario analysis, and
business environment and control factors, may play a more dominant role in the risk
measurement system.
 
Conversely, operational loss event data may play a more dominant role in the risk measurement system for business lines where estimates of the 99.9th percentile confidence interval based primarily on such data are deemed reliable. In all cases, the bank’s approach for weighting the four fundamental elements should be internally consistent and avoid the double counting of qualitative assessments or risk mitigants already recognised in other elements of the framework.
Internal data
 
670. Banks must track internal loss data according to the criteria set out in this section.
The tracking of internal loss event data is an essential prerequisite to the development and
functioning of a credible operational risk measurement system. Internal loss data is crucial
for tying a bank’s risk estimates to its actual loss experience. This can be achieved in a
number of ways, including using internal loss data as the foundation of empirical risk
estimates, as a means of validating the inputs and outputs of the bank’s risk measurement
system, or as the link between loss experience and risk management and control decisions.
 
671. Internal loss data is most relevant when it is clearly linked to a bank’s current
business activities, technological processes and risk management procedures. Therefore, a
bank must have documented procedures for assessing the on-going relevance of historical
loss data, including those situations in which judgement overrides, scaling, or other
adjustments may be used, to what extent they may be used and who is authorised to make
such decisions.
 
672. Internally generated operational risk measures used for regulatory capital purposes
must be based on a minimum five-year observation period of internal loss data, whether the
internal loss data is used directly to build the loss measure or to validate it. When the bank
first moves to the AMA, a three-year historical data window is acceptable (this includes the
parallel calculations in paragraph 46).
 
673. To qualify for regulatory capital purposes, a bank’s internal loss collection processes
must meet the following standards:
 
To assist in supervisory validation, a bank must be able to map its historical internal
loss data into the relevant level 1 supervisory categories defined in Annexes 8 and 9
and to provide these data to supervisors upon request. It must have documented,
objective criteria for allocating losses to the specified business lines and event
types. However, it is left to the bank to decide the extent to which it applies these
categorisations in its internal operational risk measurement system.
 
A bank’s internal loss data must be comprehensive in that it captures all material
activities and exposures from all appropriate sub-systems and geographic locations.
A bank must be able to justify that any excluded activities or exposures, both
individually and in combination, would not have a material impact on the overall risk
estimates. A bank must have an appropriate de minimis gross loss threshold for
internal loss data collection, for example €10,000. The appropriate threshold may
vary somewhat between banks, and within a bank across business lines and/or
event types. However, particular thresholds should be broadly consistent with those
used by peer banks.
 
Aside from information on gross loss amounts, a bank should collect information
about the date of the event, any recoveries of gross loss amounts, as well as some
descriptive information about the drivers or causes of the loss event. The level of
detail of any descriptive information should be commensurate with the size of the
gross loss amount.
 
A bank must develop specific criteria for assigning loss data arising from an event in
a centralised function (e.g. an information technology department) or an activity that
spans more than one business line, as well as from related events over time.
 
Operational risk losses that are related to credit risk and have historically been
included in banks’ credit risk databases (e.g. collateral management failures) will
continue to be treated as credit risk for the purposes of calculating minimum
regulatory capital under this Framework. Therefore, such losses will not be subject
to the operational risk capital charge. (109)
 
Nevertheless, for the purposes of internal operational risk management, banks must identify all material operational risk losses consistent with the scope of the definition of operational risk (as set out in paragraph 644 and the loss event types outlined in Annex 9), including those related to credit risk. Such material operational risk-related credit risk losses should be flagged separately within a bank’s internal operational risk database. The materiality of
these losses may vary between banks, and within a bank across business lines
and/or event types. Materiality thresholds should be broadly consistent with those
used by peer banks.
 
Operational risk losses that are related to market risk are treated as operational risk
for the purposes of calculating minimum regulatory capital under this Framework
and will therefore be subject to the operational risk capital charge.
 
(109) This applies to all banks, including those that may only now be designing their credit risk and operational risk databases.
 
External data
 
674. A bank’s operational risk measurement system must use relevant external data
(either public data and/or pooled industry data), especially when there is reason to believe
that the bank is exposed to infrequent, yet potentially severe, losses. These external data
should include data on actual loss amounts, information on the scale of business operations
where the event occurred, information on the causes and circumstances of the loss events,
or other information that would help in assessing the relevance of the loss event for other
banks.
 
A bank must have a systematic process for determining the situations for which
external data must be used and the methodologies used to incorporate the data (e.g. scaling,
qualitative adjustments, or informing the development of improved scenario analysis). The
conditions and practices for external data use must be regularly reviewed, documented, and
subject to periodic independent review.
 
Scenario analysis
 
675. A bank must use scenario analysis of expert opinion in conjunction with external
data to evaluate its exposure to high-severity events. This approach draws on the knowledge
of experienced business managers and risk management experts to derive reasoned
assessments of plausible severe losses. For instance, these expert assessments could be
expressed as parameters of an assumed statistical loss distribution. In addition, scenario
analysis should be used to assess the impact of deviations from the correlation assumptions
embedded in the bank’s operational risk measurement framework, in particular, to evaluate
potential losses arising from multiple simultaneous operational risk loss events. Over time,
such assessments need to be validated and re-assessed through comparison to actual loss
experience to ensure their reasonableness.
 
Business environment and internal control factors
 
676. In addition to using loss data, whether actual or scenario-based, a bank’s firm-wide
risk assessment methodology must capture key business environment and internal control
factors that can change its operational risk profile. These factors will make a bank’s risk
assessments more forward-looking, more directly reflect the quality of the bank’s control and
operating environments, help align capital assessments with risk management objectives,
and recognise both improvements and deterioration in operational risk profiles in a more
immediate fashion. To qualify for regulatory capital purposes, the use of these factors in a
bank’s risk measurement framework must meet the following standards:
 
The choice of each factor needs to be justified as a meaningful driver of risk, based
on experience and involving the expert judgment of the affected business areas.
Whenever possible, the factors should be translatable into quantitative measures
that lend themselves to verification.
 
The sensitivity of a bank’s risk estimates to changes in the factors and the relative
weighting of the various factors need to be well reasoned. In addition to capturing
changes in risk due to improvements in risk controls, the framework must also
capture potential increases in risk due to greater complexity of activities or increased
business volume.
 
The framework and each instance of its application, including the supporting
rationale for any adjustments to empirical estimates, must be documented and
subject to independent review within the bank and by supervisors.
 
Over time, the process and the outcomes need to be validated through comparison
to actual internal loss experience, relevant external data, and appropriate
adjustments made.
 
(iv) Risk mitigation (110)
 
110 The Committee intends to continue an ongoing dialogue with the industry on the use of risk mitigants for operational risk and, in due course, may consider revising the criteria for and limits on the recognition of operational risk mitigants on the basis of growing experience.
 
677. Under the AMA, a bank will be allowed to recognise the risk mitigating impact of
insurance in the measures of operational risk used for regulatory minimum capital
requirements. The recognition of insurance mitigation will be limited to 20% of the total
operational risk capital charge calculated under the AMA.
 
678. A bank’s ability to take advantage of such risk mitigation will depend on compliance
with the following criteria:
 
The insurance provider has a minimum claims paying ability rating of A (or
equivalent).
 
The insurance policy must have an initial term of no less than one year. For policies
with a residual term of less than one year, the bank must make appropriate haircuts
reflecting the declining residual term of the policy, up to a full 100% haircut for
policies with a residual term of 90 days or less.
 
The insurance policy has a minimum notice period for cancellation of 90 days.
 
The insurance policy has no exclusions or limitations triggered by supervisory
actions or, in the case of a failed bank, that preclude the bank, receiver or liquidator
from recovering for damages suffered or expenses incurred by the bank, except in
respect of events occurring after the initiation of receivership or liquidation
proceedings in respect of the bank, provided that the insurance policy may exclude
any fine, penalty, or punitive damages resulting from supervisory actions.
 
The risk mitigation calculations must reflect the bank’s insurance coverage in a
manner that is transparent in its relationship to, and consistent with, the actual
likelihood and impact of loss used in the bank’s overall determination of its
operational risk capital.
 
The insurance is provided by a third-party entity. In the case of insurance through
captives and affiliates, the exposure has to be laid off to an independent third-party
entity, for example through re-insurance, that meets the eligibility criteria.
 
The framework for recognising insurance is well reasoned and documented.
 
The bank discloses a description of its use of insurance for the purpose of mitigating
operational risk.
 
679. A bank’s methodology for recognising insurance under the AMA also needs to
capture the following elements through appropriate discounts or haircuts in the amount of
insurance recognition:
 
The residual term of a policy, where less than one year, as noted above;
 
A policy’s cancellation terms, where less than one year; and
 
The uncertainty of payment as well as mismatches in coverage of insurance
policies.
 
D. Partial use
680. A bank will be permitted to use an AMA for some parts of its operations and the
Basic Indicator Approach or Standardised Approach for the balance (partial use), provided
that the following conditions are met:
 
All operational risks of the bank’s global, consolidated operations are captured;
 
All of the bank’s operations that are covered by the AMA meet the qualitative criteria
for using an AMA, while those parts of its operations that are using one of the
simpler approaches meet the qualifying criteria for that approach;
 
On the date of implementation of an AMA, a significant part of the bank’s operational
risks are captured by the AMA; and
 
The bank provides its supervisor with a plan specifying the timetable to which it
intends to roll out the AMA across all but an immaterial part of its operations. The
plan should be driven by the practicality and feasibility of moving to the AMA over
time, and not for other reasons.
 
681. Subject to the approval of its supervisor, a bank opting for partial use may determine
which parts of its operations will use an AMA on the basis of business line, legal structure,
geography, or other internally determined basis.
 
682. Subject to the approval of its supervisor, where a bank intends to implement an
approach other than the AMA on a global, consolidated basis and it does not meet the third
and/or fourth conditions in paragraph 680, the bank may, in limited circumstances:
 
Implement an AMA on a permanent partial basis; and
 
Include in its global, consolidated operational risk capital requirements the results of
an AMA calculation at a subsidiary where the AMA has been approved by the
relevant host supervisor and is acceptable to the bank’s home supervisor.
 
683. Approvals of the nature described in paragraph 682 should be granted only on an
exceptional basis. Such exceptional approvals should generally be limited to circumstances
where a bank is prevented from meeting these conditions due to implementation decisions of
supervisors of the bank’s subsidiary operations in foreign jurisdictions.
    
 

 

 

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