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Economic Capital
In finance, mainly for financial services firms, economic capital (ecap) is the amount of risk capital, assessed on a realistic basis, which a firm requires to cover the risks that it is running or collecting as a going concern, such as market risk, credit risk, legal risk, and operational risk. It is the amount of money that is needed to secure survival in a worst-case scenario. Firms and financial services regulators should then aim to hold risk capital of an amount equal at least to economic capital. Typically, economic capital is calculated by determining the amount of capital that the firm needs to ensure that its realistic balance sheet stays solvent over a certain time period with a pre-specified probability. Therefore, economic capital is often calculated as value at risk. The balance sheet, in this case, would be prepared showing market value (rather than book value) of assets and liabilities. The first accounts of economic capital date back to the ancient Phoenic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of financial economics bridges the two). Finance activities take place in financial systems at various scopes, thus the field can be roughly divided into personal, corporate, and public finance. In a financial system, assets are bought, sold, or traded as financial instruments, such as currencies, loans, bonds, shares, stocks, options, futures, etc. Assets can also be banked, invested, and insured to maximize value and minimize loss. In practice, risks are always present in any financial action and entities. A broad range of subfields within finance exist due to its wide scope. Asset, money, risk and investment management aim to maximize value and minimize volatility. Financial analysis is viability, stability, and profitabili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Capital
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, shared values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity. Social capital is a measure of the value of resources, both tangible (e.g., public spaces, private property) and intangible (e.g., actors, human capital, people), and the impact that ideal creators have on the resources involved in each relationship, and on larger groups. Some have described it as a form of capital that produces public goods for a common purpose, although this does not align with how it has been measured. Social capital has been used to explain the improved performance of diverse groups, the growth of entrepreneurial firms, superior managerial performance, enhanced supply chain relations, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures credit unions. The FDIC is a United States government corporation supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. The FDIC was created by the Banking Act of 1933, enacted during the Great Depression to restore trust in the American banking system. More than one-third of banks failed in the years before the FDIC's creation, and bank runs were common. The insurance limit was initially US$2,500 per ownership category, and this was increased several times over the years. Since the enactment of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, the FDIC insures deposits in member banks up to $250,000 per ownership category. FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solvency II
Solvency II Directive 20092009/138/EC is a Directive in European Union law that codifies and harmonises the EU insurance regulation. Primarily this concerns the amount of capital that EU insurance companies must hold to reduce the risk of insolvency. Following an EU Parliament vote on the Omnibus II Directive on 11 March 2014, Solvency II came into effect on 1 January 2016. This date had been previously pushed back many times. Aims EU insurance legislation aims to unify a single EU insurance market and enhance consumer protection. The third-generation Insurance Directives established an "EU passport" (single licence) for insurers to operate in all member states if they fulfilled EU conditions. Many member states concluded the EU minima were not enough, and took up their own reforms, which still led to differing regulations, hampering the goal of a single market. Political implications of Solvency II A number of the large Life Insurers in the UK are unhappy with the way the leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAROC
Risk-adjusted return on capital (RAROC) is a risk-based profitability measurement framework for analysing risk-adjusted financial performance and providing a consistent view of profitability across businesses. The concept was developed by Bankers Trust and principal designer Dan Borge in the late 1970s. Note, however, that increasingly return on risk-adjusted capital (RORAC) is used as a measure, whereby the risk adjustment of Capital is based on the capital adequacy guidelines as outlined by the Basel Committee. Basic formulae The formula is given by :\mbox = = Broadly speaking, in business enterprises, risk is traded off against benefit. RAROC is defined as the ratio of risk adjusted return to economic capital. The economic capital is the amount of money which is needed to secure the survival in a worst-case scenario, it is a buffer against unexpected shocks in market values. Economic capital is a function of market risk, credit risk, and operational risk, and is o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Services Conglomerate
Financial services are the economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, consumer-finance companies, stock brokerages, investment funds, individual asset managers, and some government-sponsored enterprises. History The term "financial services" became more prevalent in the United States partly as a result of the GrammLeachBliley Act of the late 1990s, which enabled different types of companies operating in the U.S. financial services industry at that time to merge. Companies usually have two distinct approaches to this new type of business. One approach would be a bank that simply buys an insurance company or an investment bank, keeps the original brands of the acquired firm, and adds the acquisition to its holding company simply to diversify its earnings. Outside the U.S. (e.g. Japan), non-financial s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Risk Management
Financial risk management is the practice of protecting Value (economics), economic value in a business, firm by using financial instruments to manage exposure to financial risk - principally operational risk, credit risk and market risk, with more specific variants as listed aside. As for risk management more generally, financial risk management requires identifying its sources, measuring it, and the plans to address them. See for an overview. Financial risk management as a "science" can be said to have been born with modern portfolio theory, particularly as initiated by Professor Harry Markowitz in 1952 with his article, "Portfolio Selection"; see . Financial risk management can be qualitative and quantitative. As a specialization of risk management, financial risk management focuses on when and how to Hedge (finance), hedge using financial instruments to manage costly exposures to risk. *In the banking sector worldwide, the Basel Accords are generally adopted by internatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Structure
In corporate finance, capital structure refers to the mix of various forms of external funds, known as capital, used to finance a business. It consists of shareholders' equity, debt (borrowed funds), and preferred stock, and is detailed in the company's balance sheet. The larger the debt component is in relation to the other sources of capital, the greater financial leverage (or gearing, in the United Kingdom) the firm is said to have. Too much debt can increase the risk of the company and reduce its financial flexibility, which at some point creates concern among investors and results in a greater cost of capital. Company management is responsible for establishing a capital structure for the corporation that makes optimal use of financial leverage and holds the cost of capital as low as possible. Capital structure is an important issue in setting rates charged to customers by regulated utilities in the United States. The utility company has the right to choose any capital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basel II
Basel II is the second of the Basel Accords, which are recommendations on banking laws and regulations issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. It is now extended and partially superseded by Basel III. The Basel II Accord was published in June 2004. It was a new framework for international banking standards, superseding the Basel I framework, to determine the minimum capital that banks should hold to guard against the financial and operational risks. The regulations aimed to ensure that the more significant the risk a bank is exposed to, the greater the amount of capital the bank needs to hold to safeguard its solvency and overall economic stability. Basel II attempted to accomplish this by establishing risk and capital management requirements to ensure that a bank has adequate capital for the risk the bank exposes itself to through its lending, investment and trading activities. One focus was to maintain sufficient consistency of regulations so to limit competi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basel I
Basel I is the first Basel Accord. It arose from deliberations by central bankers from major countries during the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1988, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) in Basel, Switzerland, published a set of minimum capital requirements for banks. It is also known as the 1988 Basel Accord, and was enforced by law in the Group of Ten (G-10) countries in 1992. Background The Committee was formed in response to the messy liquidation of Cologne-based Herstatt Bank in 1974. On 26 June 1974 a number of banks had released Deutschmarks (the German currency) to the Herstatt Bank in exchange for dollar payments deliverable in New York City. Due to differences in the time zones, there was a lag in the dollar payment to the counterparty banks; during this lag period, before the dollar payments could be effected in New York, the Herstatt Bank was liquidated by German regulators. This incident prompted the G-10 nations to form the Basel Committee on Banking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asset Allocation
Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets. Description Many financial experts argue that asset allocation is an important factor in determining returns for an investment portfolio. Asset allocation is based on the principle that different assets perform differently in different market and economic conditions. A fundamental justification for asset allocation is the notion that different asset classes offer returns that are not perfectly correlated, hence diversification reduces the overall risk in terms of the variability of returns for a given level of expected return. Asset diversification has been described as "the only fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
