Category: Financial Stability

What a difference a day makes

Matt Roberts-Sklar

What a difference a day makes BANNER

Often when analysing financial markets, we want to know the statistical distribution of some financial market prices, yields or returns. But the ‘true’ distribution is unknown and unknowable. So we estimate the distribution, based on what we’ve observed in the past. In financial markets, adding one data point can make a huge difference. Sharp moves in Italian bond yields in May 2018 are case in point – in this blog I show how a single day’s trading drastically alters the estimated distribution of returns. This is important to keep in mind when modelling financial market returns, e.g. for risk management purposes or financial stability monitoring.

Continue reading “What a difference a day makes” →

Who supplies liquidity in CHAPS?

Evangelos Benos and Christina Fritz

Every day UK banks and corporates (“participants”) make sizeable payments to each other through CHAPS, the country’s high-value payment system. However, these payments are liquidity-intensive: every payment must be pre-funded, i.e. the payer must have in place the full amount to be paid. This can be costly, so each participant would prefer to first receive some money from another one and then make its own payments by recycling the received amount. However, this still requires that some participants supply intra-day liquidity to the system by making the first payments. But who are these participants? This post shows that it is typically the smaller ones and also those perceived by markets to be riskier that get the ball rolling…

Continue reading “Who supplies liquidity in CHAPS?” →

Core Design Principles for a Central Bank Digital Currency

Clare Noone and Michael Kumhof

Does the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) crowd out bank funding? Does it open the door to runs on the aggregate banking system? In a recent Staff Working Paper we provide insights on these questions. We find that some of the major risks to financial stability posed by CBDC can be addressed by a set of four core design principles for a CBDC system. Implementing these principles, however, is non-trivial and risks would remain.

Continue reading “Core Design Principles for a Central Bank Digital Currency” →

Algos all go?

Francis Breedon, Louisa Chen, Angelo Ranaldo and Nicholas Vause

Most academic studies find that algorithmic trading improves the quality of financial markets in normal times by boosting market liquidity (so larger trades can be executed more quickly at lower cost) and enhancing price efficiency (so market prices better reflect all value-relevant information). But what about in times of market stress? In a recent paper looking at the removal of the Swiss franc cap, we find that algorithmic trading provided less liquidity than usual, at worse prices, and that its contribution to efficient pricing dropped to near zero. Market quality benefits from a diversity of participants pursuing different trading strategies, but it seems this was undermined in this episode by commonalities in the way algorithms responded.

Continue reading “Algos all go?” →

Bitesize: Risk-weight watchers: a probe into UK banks’ capital ratios

James Cui and Marcus Pettersson

Shortcomings of the Basel capital framework became apparent in the 2007-8 crisis. One much reviewed and debated issue is that capital ratios can be increased by changes to methods and models for calculating RWA (M&M changes hereinafter) rather than by changes to balance sheets. How have UK banks fared in this respect?

Continue reading “Bitesize: Risk-weight watchers: a probe into UK banks’ capital ratios” →

Bitesize: The rise and fall of interest only mortgages

Sachin Galaiya

The interest-only product has undergone tremendous evolution, from its mass-market glory days in the run-up to the crisis, to its rebirth as a niche product. However, since reaching a low-point in 2016, the interest-only market is starting to show signs of life again as lenders re-enter the market.

Continue reading “Bitesize: The rise and fall of interest only mortgages” →

Trimming the Hedge: How can CCPs efficiently manage a default?

Fernando Cerezetti, Emmanouil Karimalis, Ujwal Shreyas and Anannit Sumawong

When a trade is executed and cleared though a central counterparty (CCP), the CCP legally becomes a buyer for every seller and a seller for every buyer. When a CCP member defaults, the need to establish a matched book for cleared positions means the defaulter’s portfolio needs to be closed out. The CCP then faces a central question: what hedges should be executed before the portfolio is liquidated so as to minimize the costs of closeout?  In a recent paper, we investigate how distinct hedging strategies may expose a CCP to different sets of risks and costs during the closeout period. Our analysis suggests that CCPs should carefully take into account these strategies when designing their default management processes.

Continue reading “Trimming the Hedge: How can CCPs efficiently manage a default?” →

Is a steeper yield curve good news for banks? A challenge to the conventional wisdom

Oliver Brenman, Frank Eich, and Jumana Saleheen

The conventional wisdom amongst financial market observers, academics, and journalists is that a steeper yield curve should be good news for bank profitability.   The argument goes that because banks borrow short and lend long, a steeper yield curve would raise the wedge between rates paid on liabilities and received on assets – the so-called “net interest margin” (or NIM).  In this post, we present cross-country evidence that challenges this view.  Our results suggest that it is the level of long-term interest rates, rather than the slope of the yield curve, that drives banks’ NIMs.

Continue reading “Is a steeper yield curve good news for banks? A challenge to the conventional wisdom” →

Bitesize: Financial services exports and financial openness: two sides of the same coin

Carlos Eduardo van Hombeeck

The UK has a comparative advantage in financial services. But specialisation in this activity brings with it the challenge of the large gross capital flows that are linked to financial services exports.

Continue reading “Bitesize: Financial services exports and financial openness: two sides of the same coin” →