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Risk Capital
A capital requirement (also known as regulatory capital, capital adequacy or capital base) is the amount of capital a bank or other financial institution has to have as required by its financial regulator. This is usually expressed as a capital adequacy ratio of equity as a percentage of risk-weighted assets. These requirements are put into place to ensure that these institutions do not take on excess leverage and risk becoming insolvent. Capital requirements govern the ratio of equity to debt, recorded on the liabilities and equity side of a firm's balance sheet. They should not be confused with reserve requirements, which govern the assets side of a bank's balance sheet—in particular, the proportion of its assets it must hold in cash or highly-liquid assets. Capital is a source of funds not a use of funds. Regulations A key part of bank regulation is to make sure that firms operating in the industry are prudently managed. The aim is to protect the firms themselves, their custo ...
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Bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords. Banking in its modern sense evolved in the fourteenth century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways functioned as a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the a ...
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Risk-weighted Asset
Risk-weighted asset (also referred to as RWA) is a bank's assets or off-balance-sheet exposures, weighted according to risk. This sort of asset calculation is used in determining the capital requirement or Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) for a financial institution. In the Basel I accord published by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the Committee explains why using a risk-weight approach is the preferred methodology which banks should adopt for capital calculation: *it provides an easier approach to compare banks across different geographies *off-balance-sheet exposures can be easily included in capital adequacy calculations *banks are not deferred from carrying low risk liquid assets in their books Usually, different classes of assets have different risk weights associated with them. The calculation of risk weights is dependent on whether the bank has adopted the standardized or IRB approach under the Basel II framework. Some assets, such as debentures, are assigned a hi ...
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Letters Of Credit
A letter of credit (LC), also known as a documentary credit or bankers commercial credit, or letter of undertaking (LoU), is a payment mechanism used in international trade to provide an economic guarantee from a creditworthy bank to an exporter of goods. Letters of credit are used extensively in the financing of international trade, when the reliability of contracting parties cannot be readily and easily determined. Its economic effect is to introduce a bank as an underwriter that assumes the counterparty risk of the buyer paying the seller for goods. History The letter of credit has been used in Europe since ancient times. Letters of credit were traditionally governed by internationally recognized rules and procedures rather than by national law. The International Chamber of Commerce oversaw the preparation of the first Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP) in 1933, creating a voluntary framework for commercial banks to apply to transactions worldw ...
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Unfunded Loan Commitments
{{unreferenced, date=February 2014 Unfunded loan commitments are those commitments made by a Financial institution that are contractual obligations for future funding. They should not be confused with Letters of credit which require certain trigger events before funding is needed. Increasingly, originating lending institutions are selling Senior loans and related funded or unfunded commitments to institutional investors like Investment management firms, mutual funds and insurance companies. Typically, unfunded commitments are separated into two categories: *Multiple Advance, Closed End: This type of loan (typically a construction loan) advances incremental amounts up to a certain limit, based upon some criteria such as inspection and approval of a draw request. Any principal reductions received during the loan period are not available to be drawn on, but rather have paid down the loan balance. *Revolving or Open End: This type of loan (known informally as a Line of credit) allows ...
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Off-balance Sheet
Off balance sheet (OBS), or incognito leverage, usually means an asset or debt or financing activity not on the company's balance sheet. Total return swaps are an example of an off-balance-sheet item. Some companies may have significant amounts of off-balance-sheet assets and liabilities. For example, financial institutions often offer asset management or brokerage services to their clients. The assets managed or brokered as part of these offered services (often securities) usually belong to the individual clients directly or in trust, although the company provides management, depository or other services to the client. The company itself has no direct claim to the assets, so it does not record them on its balance sheet (they are off-balance-sheet assets), while it usually has some basic fiduciary duties with respect to the client. Financial institutions may report off-balance-sheet items in their accounting statements formally, and may also refer to " assets under management", a f ...
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Assets
In financial accountancy, financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash (although cash itself is also considered an asset). The balance sheet of a firm records the monetaryThere are different methods of assessing the monetary value of the assets recorded on the Balance Sheet. In some cases, the ''Historical Cost'' is used; such that the value of the asset when it was bought in the past is used as the monetary value. In other instances, the present fair market value of the asset is used to determine the value shown on the balance sheet. value of the assets owned by that firm. It covers money and other valuables belonging to an individual or to a business. Assets can be grouped into two major classes: Tangible property, tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible ...
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Credit Risk
A credit risk is risk of default on a debt that may arise from a borrower failing to make required payments. In the first resort, the risk is that of the lender and includes lost principal and interest, disruption to cash flows, and increased collection costs. The loss may be complete or partial. In an efficient market, higher levels of credit risk will be associated with higher borrowing costs. Because of this, measures of borrowing costs such as yield spreads can be used to infer credit risk levels based on assessments by market participants. Losses can arise in a number of circumstances, for example: * A consumer may fail to make a payment due on a mortgage loan, credit card, line of credit, or other loan. * A company is unable to repay asset-secured fixed or floating charge debt. * A business or consumer does not pay a trade invoice when due. * A business does not pay an employee's earned wages when due. * A business or government bond issuer does not make a payment on ...
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Board Of Governors Of The Federal Reserve System
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the Federal Reserve Board, is the main governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It is charged with overseeing the Federal Reserve Banks and with helping implement the monetary policy of the United States. Governors are appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate for staggered 14-year terms.See Statutory description By law, the appointments must yield a "fair representation of the financial, agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests and geographical divisions of the country". As stipulated in the Banking Act of 1935, the Chair and Vice Chair of the Board are two of seven members of the Board of Governors who are appointed by the President from among the sitting governors of the Federal Reserve Banks. The terms of the seven members of the Board span multiple presidential and congressional terms. Once a member of the Board of Governors is appointed by the president ...
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Depository Institutions
Colloquially, a depository institution is a financial institution in the United States (such as a savings bank, commercial bank, savings and loan associations, or credit unions) that is legally allowed to accept monetary deposits from consumers. Under federal law, however, a "depository institution" is limited to banks and savings associations - credit unions are not included. An example of a non-depository institution might be a mortgage bank. While licensed to lend, they cannot accept deposits. See also *Authorised deposit-taking institution Financial institutions in Australia are only permitted to accept deposits from the public if they are authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs). The ADI’s authority is granted by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) under the ... References * Ruben D Cohen (2004) The Optimal Capital Structure of Depository Institutions, ''Wilmott Magazine'', March issue. Financial services in the United States {{Busine ...
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Capital Adequacy Directive
The Capital Adequacy Directive was a European directive that aimed to establish uniform capital requirements for both banking firms and non-bank securities firms, first issued in 1993 and revised in 1998. These was superseded by the Capital Requirements Directives starting in 2006. History The original 93/6/EEC (CAD1) directive was amended by 98/31/EEC (CAD2), to incorporate banks' own estimate of capital using value-at-risk techniques. Annex 1 models were virtually unchanged by CAD2, so there has been no change in the CAD1 regime. A third revision of the directive 2006/49/EC was issued on 14 June 2006 and would use the new name of Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) . This came into force together with recast of a related banking directive on 20 July 2006. The main change was the adoption of Basel II guidelines into the directive. In 2009, 2010, and 2013, three further revisions were issued known as CRD II, CRD III, and CRD IV. The legislation on this matter current is kn ...
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Banca D'Italia
The Bank of Italy (Italian: ''Banca d'Italia'', informally referred to as ''Bankitalia''), (), is the central bank of Italy and part of the European System of Central Banks. It is located in Palazzo Koch, via Nazionale, Rome. The bank's current governor is Ignazio Visco, who took the office on 1 November 2011. Functions After the charge of monetary and exchange rate policies was shifted in 1998 to the European Central Bank, within the European institutional framework, the bank implements the decisions, issues euro banknotes and withdraws and destroys worn pieces. The main function has thus become banking and financial supervision. The objective is to ensure the stability and efficiency of the system and compliance with rules and regulations; the bank pursues it through secondary legislation, controls and cooperation with governmental authorities. Following a reform in 2005, which was prompted by takeover scandals, the bank has lost exclusive antitrust authority in the credit ...
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OSFI
The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI; french: Bureau du surintendant des institutions financières, BSIF) is an independent agency of the Government of Canada reporting to the Minister of Finance created "to contribute to public confidence in the Canadian financial system". It is the sole regulator of banks, and the primary regulator of insurance companies, trust companies, loan companies and pension plans in Canada. The current Superintendent is Peter Routledge, who was appointed in June 2021. He replaced Jeremy Rudin, who retired. The term of the appointment is seven years. Mandate The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) was created to contribute to public confidence in the Canadian financial system. OSFI's mandate is to protect depositors, policyholders, financial institution creditors and pension plan members, while allowing financial institutions to compete and take reasonable risks. Specifically OSFI achieves this th ...
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