D. The standardised approach ─ credit risk mitigation

1. Overarching issues
(i) Introduction

109. Banks use a number of techniques to mitigate the credit risks to which they are exposed.

For example, exposures may be collateralised by first priority claims, in whole or in part with cash or securities, a loan exposure may be guaranteed by a third party, or a bank may buy a credit derivative to offset various forms of credit risk.

Additionally banks may agree to net loans owed to them against deposits from the same counterparty.

110. Where these techniques meet the requirements for legal certainty as described in paragraph 117 and 118 below, the revised approach to CRM allows a wider range of credit risk mitigants to be recognised for regulatory capital purposes than is permitted under the 1988 Accord.

(ii) General remarks

111. The framework set out in this Section II is applicable to the banking book exposures in the standardised approach. For the treatment of CRM in the IRB approach, see Section III.

112. The comprehensive approach for the treatment of collateral (see paragraphs 130 to 138 and 145 to 181) will also be applied to calculate the counterparty risk charges for OTC derivatives and repo-style transactions booked in the trading book.

113. No transaction in which CRM techniques are used should receive a higher capital requirement than an otherwise identical transaction where such techniques are not used.

114. The effects of CRM will not be double counted. Therefore, no additional supervisory recognition of CRM for regulatory capital purposes will be granted on claims for which an issue-specific rating is used that already reflects that CRM. As stated in paragraph 100 of the section on the standardised approach, principal-only ratings will also not be allowed within the framework of CRM.

115. While the use of CRM techniques reduces or transfers credit risk, it simultaneously may increase other risks (residual risks). Residual risks include legal, operational, liquidity and market risks.

Therefore, it is imperative that banks employ robust procedures and processes to control these risks, including strategy; consideration of the underlying credit; valuation; policies and procedures; systems; control of roll-off risks; and management of concentration risk arising from the bank’s use of CRM techniques and its interaction with the
bank’s overall credit risk profile.

Where these risks are not adequately controlled, supervisors may impose additional capital charges or take other supervisory actions as outlined in Pillar 2.

116. The Pillar 3 requirements must also be observed for banks to obtain capital relief in respect of any CRM techniques.

(iii) Legal certainty

117. In order for banks to obtain capital relief for any use of CRM techniques, the following minimum standards for legal documentation must be met.

118. All documentation used in collateralised transactions and for documenting on balance sheet netting, guarantees and credit derivatives must be binding on all parties and legally enforceable in all relevant jurisdictions.

Banks must have conducted sufficient legal review to verify this and have a well founded legal basis to reach this conclusion, and undertake such further review as necessary to ensure continuing enforceability.

2. Overview of Credit Risk Mitigation Techniques *

(i) Collateralised transactions

119. A collateralised transaction is one in which:

• banks have a credit exposure or potential credit exposure; and

• that credit exposure or potential credit exposure is hedged in whole or in part by collateral posted by a  counterparty * or by a third party on behalf of the counterparty.

* See Annex 10 for an overview of methodologies for the capital treatment of transactions secured by financial collateral under the standardised and IRB approaches.

* In this section “counterparty” is used to denote a party to whom a bank has an on- or off-balance sheet credit
exposure or a potential credit exposure.

That exposure may, for example, take the form of a loan of cash or securities (where the counterparty would traditionally be called the borrower), of securities posted as collateral, of a commitment or of exposure under an OTC derivatives contract.

120. Where banks take eligible financial collateral (e.g. cash or securities, more specifically defined in paragraphs 145 and 146 below), they are allowed to reduce their credit exposure to a counterparty when calculating their capital requirements to take account of the risk mitigating effect of the collateral.

Overall framework and minimum conditions

121. Banks may opt for either the simple approach, which, similar to the 1988 Accord, substitutes the risk weighting of the collateral for the risk weighting of the counterparty for the collateralised portion of the exposure (generally subject to a 20% floor), or for the comprehensive approach, which allows fuller offset of collateral against exposures, by effectively reducing the exposure amount by the value ascribed to the collateral.

Banks may operate under either, but not both, approaches in the banking book, but only under the comprehensive approach in the trading book.

Partial collateralisation is recognised in both approaches.

Mismatches in the maturity of the underlying exposure and the collateral will only be allowed under the comprehensive approach.

122. However, before capital relief will be granted in respect of any form of collateral, the standards set out below in paragraphs 123 to 126 must be met under either approach.

123. In addition to the general requirements for legal certainty set out in paragraphs 117 and 118, the legal mechanism by which collateral is pledged or transferred must ensure that the bank has the right to liquidate or take legal possession of it, in a timely manner, in the event of the default, insolvency or bankruptcy (or one or more otherwise-defined credit events set out in the transaction documentation) of the counterparty (and, where applicable,
of the custodian holding the collateral).

Furthermore banks must take all steps necessary to fulfil those requirements under the law applicable to the bank’s interest in the collateral for obtaining and maintaining an enforceable security interest, e.g. by registering it with a
registrar, or for exercising a right to net or set off in relation to title transfer collateral.

124. In order for collateral to provide protection, the credit quality of the counterparty and the value of the collateral must not have a material positive correlation.

For example, securities issued by the counterparty ─ or by any related group entity ─ would provide little
protection and so would be ineligible.

125. Banks must have clear and robust procedures for the timely liquidation of collateral to ensure that any legal conditions required for declaring the default of the counterparty and liquidating the collateral are observed, and that collateral can be liquidated promptly.

126. Where the collateral is held by a custodian, banks must take reasonable steps to ensure that the custodian segregates the collateral from its own assets.

127. A capital requirement will be applied to a bank on either side of the collateralised transaction: for example, both repos and reverse repos will be subject to capital requirements.

Likewise, both sides of a securities lending and borrowing transaction will be subject to explicit capital charges, as will the posting of securities in connection with a derivative exposure or other borrowing.

128. Where a bank, acting as an agent, arranges a repo-style transaction (i.e. repurchase/reverse repurchase and securities lending/borrowing transactions) between a customer and a third party and provides a guarantee to the customer that the third party will perform on its obligations, then the risk to the bank is the same as if the bank had
entered into the transaction as a principal.

In such circumstances, a bank will be required to calculate capital requirements as if it were itself the principal.

The simple approach

129. In the simple approach the risk weighting of the collateral instrument collateralising or partially collateralising the exposure is substituted for the risk weighting of the counterparty. Details of this framework are provided in paragraphs 182 to 185.

The comprehensive approach

130. In the comprehensive approach, when taking collateral, banks will need to calculate their adjusted exposure to a counterparty for capital adequacy purposes in order to take account of the effects of that collateral.

Using haircuts, banks are required to adjust both the amount of the exposure to the counterparty and the value of any collateral received in support of that counterparty to take account of possible future fluctuations in the value of
either, occasioned by market movements. *

This will produce volatility adjusted amounts for both exposure and collateral.

Unless either side of the transaction is cash, the volatility adjusted amount for the exposure will be higher than the exposure and for the collateral it will be lower.

* Exposure amounts may vary where, for example, securities are being lent.

131. Additionally where the exposure and collateral are held in different currencies an additional downwards adjustment must be made to the volatility adjusted collateral amount to take account of possible future fluctuations in exchange rates.

132. Where the volatility-adjusted exposure amount is greater than the volatility-adjusted collateral amount (including any further adjustment for foreign exchange risk), banks shall calculate their risk-weighted assets as the difference between the two multiplied by the risk weight of the counterparty.

The framework for performing these calculations is set out in paragraphs 147 to 150.

133. In principle, banks have two ways of calculating the haircuts:

(i) standard supervisory haircuts, using parameters set by the Committee, and

(ii) own-estimate haircuts, using banks’ own internal estimates of market price volatility.

Supervisors will allow banks to use own-estimate haircuts only when they fulfil certain qualitative and quantitative criteria.

134. A bank may choose to use standard or own-estimate haircuts independently of the choice it has made between the standardised approach and the foundation IRB approach to credit risk.

However, if banks seek to use their own-estimate haircuts, they must do so for the full range of instrument types for which they would be eligible to use own-estimates, the exception being immaterial portfolios where they may use the standard supervisory haircuts.

135. The size of the individual haircuts will depend on the type of instrument, type of transaction and the frequency of marking-to-market and remargining.

For example, repo style transactions subject to daily marking-to-market and to daily remargining will receive a haircut based on a 5-business day holding period and secured lending transactions with daily mark-to-market and no remargining clauses will receive a haircut based on a 20-business day holding period.

These haircut numbers will be scaled up using the square root of time formula depending on the frequency of remargining or marking-to-market.

136. For certain types of repo-style transactions (broadly speaking government bond repos as defined in paragraphs 170 and 171) supervisors may allow banks using standard supervisory haircuts or own-estimate haircuts not to apply these in calculating the exposure amount after risk mitigation.

137. The effect of master netting agreements covering repo-style transactions can be recognised for the calculation of capital requirements subject to the conditions in paragraph 173.

138. As a further alternative to standard supervisory haircuts and own-estimate haircuts banks may use VaR models for calculating potential price volatility for repo-style transactions and other similar SFTs, as set out in paragraphs 178 to 181 (i) below.

Alternatively, subject to supervisory approval, they may also calculate, for these transactions, an expected positive
exposure, as set forth in Annex 4 of this Framework.

(ii) On-balance sheet netting

139. Where banks have legally enforceable netting arrangements for loans and deposits they may calculate capital requirements on the basis of net credit exposures subject to the conditions in paragraph 188.

(iii) Guarantees and credit derivatives

140. Where guarantees or credit derivatives are direct, explicit, irrevocable and unconditional, and supervisors are satisfied that banks fulfil certain minimum operational conditions relating to risk management processes they may allow banks to take account of such credit protection in calculating capital requirements.

141. A range of guarantors and protection providers are recognised.

As under the 1988 Accord, a substitution approach will be applied.

Thus only guarantees issued by or protection provided by entities with a lower risk weight than the counterparty will lead to reduced capital charges since the protected portion of the counterparty exposure is assigned the risk weight
of the guarantor or protection provider, whereas the uncovered portion retains the risk weight of the underlying counterparty.

142. Detailed operational requirements are given below in paragraphs 189 to 193.

(iv) Maturity mismatch

143. Where the residual maturity of the CRM is less than that of the underlying credit exposure a maturity mismatch occurs. Where there is a maturity mismatch and the CRM has an original maturity of less than one year, the CRM is not recognised for capital purposes. 

In other cases where there is a maturity mismatch, partial recognition is given to the CRM for regulatory capital purposes as detailed below in paragraphs 202 to 205.

Under the simple approach for collateral maturity mismatches will not be allowed.

(v) Miscellaneous

144. Treatments for pools of credit risk mitigants and first- and second-to-default credit derivatives are given in paragraphs 206 to 210 below.

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