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Tier 1 Capital
Tier 1 capital is the core measure of a bank's financial strength from a regulator's point of view.By definition of Bank for International Settlements. It is composed of ''core capital'', which consists primarily of common stock and disclosed reserves (or retained earnings), but may also include non-redeemable non-cumulative preferred stock as well as physical gold held in vaults. The Basel Committee also observed that banks have used innovative instruments over the years to generate Tier 1 capital; these are subject to stringent conditions and are limited to a maximum of 15% of total Tier 1 capital. This part of the Tier 1 capital will be phased out during the implementation of Basel III. Capital in this sense is related to, but different from, the accounting concept of shareholders' equity. Both Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital were first defined in the Basel I capital accord and remained substantially the same in the replacement Basel II accord. Tier 2 capital represents " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, 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. As banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of Bank regulation, 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 accounting liquidity, 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 o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bank Reserves
Bank reserves are a commercial bank's cash holdings physically held by the bank, and deposits held in the bank's account with the central bank. In most countries, the Central bank may set minimum reserve requirements that mandate commercial banks under their purview to hold cash or deposits at the central bank equivalent to at least a prescribed percentage of their liabilities, such as customer deposits. Such sums are usually termed required reserves, and any funds above the required amount are called excess reserves. These reserves are prescribed to ensure that, in the normal events, there is sufficient liquidity in the banking system to provide funds to bank customers wishing to withdraw cash. Even when there are no reserve requirements, banks often as a matter of prudent management hold reserves in case of unexpected events, such as unusually large net withdrawals by customers (such as before Christmas) or bank runs. Traditionally, central banks do not pay interest on reserve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008 Financial Crisis
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners and financial institutions that led to the 2000s United States housing bubble, exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of Derivative (finance), derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operational Risk
Operational risk is the risk of losses caused by flawed or failed processes, policies, systems or events that disrupt business operations. Employee errors, criminal activity such as fraud, and physical events are among the factors that can trigger operational risk. The process to manage operational risk is known as operational risk management. The definition of operational risk, adopted by the European Solvency II Directive for insurers, is a variation adopted from the Basel II regulations for banks: "The risk of a change in value caused by the fact that actual losses, incurred for inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems, or from external events (including legal risk), differ from the expected losses". The scope of operational risk is then broad, and can also include other classes of risks, such as fraud, security, privacy protection, legal risks, physical (e.g. infrastructure shutdown) or environmental risks. Operational risks similarly may impact br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Value At Risk
Value at risk (VaR) is a measure of the risk of loss of investment/capital. It estimates how much a set of investments might lose (with a given probability), given normal market conditions, in a set time period such as a day. VaR is typically used by firms and regulators in the financial industry to gauge the amount of assets needed to cover possible losses. For a given portfolio, time horizon, and probability ''p'', the ''p'' VaR can be defined informally as the maximum possible loss during that time after excluding all worse outcomes whose combined probability is at most ''p''. This assumes mark-to-market pricing, and no trading in the portfolio. For example, if a portfolio of stocks has a one-day 5% VaR of $1 million, that means that there is a 0.05 probability that the portfolio will fall in value by $1 million or more over a one-day period if there is no trading. Informally, a loss of $1 million or more on this portfolio is expected on 1 day out of 20 days (because of 5% p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Risk
Market risk is the risk of losses in positions arising from movements in market variables like prices and volatility. There is no unique classification as each classification may refer to different aspects of market risk. Nevertheless, the most commonly used types of market risk are: * '' Equity risk'', the risk that stock or stock indices (e.g. Euro Stoxx 50, etc.) prices or their implied volatility will change. * ''Interest rate risk'', the risk that interest rates (e.g. Libor, Euribor, etc.) or their implied volatility will change. * '' Currency risk'', the risk that foreign exchange rates (e.g. EUR/USD, EUR/GBP, etc.) or their implied volatility will change. * '' Commodity risk'', the risk that commodity prices (e.g. corn, crude oil) or their implied volatility will change. * '' Margining risk'' results from uncertain future cash outflows due to margin calls covering adverse value changes of a given position. * '' Shape risk'' * '' Holding period risk'' * '' Basi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bank Of International Settlements
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution which is owned by member central banks. Its primary goal is to foster international monetary and financial cooperation while serving as a bank for central banks. With its establishment in 1930 it is the oldest international financial institution. Its initial purpose was to oversee the settlement of World War I war reparations. The BIS carries out its work through its meetings, programmes and through the Basel Process, hosting international groups pursuing global financial stability and facilitating their interaction. It also provides banking services, but only to central banks and other international organizations. The BIS is based in Basel, Switzerland, with representative offices in Hong Kong and Mexico City. History Background International monetary cooperation started to develop tentatively in the course of the 19th century. An early case was a £400,000 loan in gold coins, in 1825 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Currency
A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific environment over time, especially for people in a nation state. Under this definition, the British Pound sterling (£), euros (€), Japanese yen (¥), and U.S. dollars (US$) are examples of (government-issued) fiat currencies. Currencies may act as stores of value and be traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are either chosen by users or decreed by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance; i.e., legal tender laws may require a particular unit of account for payments to government agencies. Other definitions of the term ''currency'' appear in the respective synonymous articles: banknote, coin, and money. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cash
In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In book-keeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immediately (as in the case of money market accounts). Cash is seen either as a reserve for payments, in case of a structural or incidental negative cash flow or as a way to avoid a downturn on financial markets. Etymology The English word ''cash'' originally meant , and later came to have a secondary meaning . This secondary usage became the sole meaning in the 18th century. The word ''cash'' comes from the Middle French , which comes from the Old Italian , and ultimately from the Latin . History In Western Europe, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, coins, silver jewelry and hacksilver (silver objects hacked into pieces) were for centuries the only form of money, until Venetian merchants started using silver bars for larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Bank
A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base. Many central banks also have supervisory or regulatory powers to ensure the stability of commercial banks in their jurisdiction, to prevent bank runs, and, in some cases, to enforce policies on financial consumer protection, and against bank fraud, money laundering, or terrorism financing. Central banks play a crucial role in macroeconomic forecasting, which is essential for guiding monetary policy decisions, especially during times of economic turbulence. Central banks in most developed nations are usually set up to be institutionally independent from political interference, even though governments typically have governance rights over them, legislative bodies exercise scrutiny, and central banks frequently do show resp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Credit Risk
Credit risk is the chance that a borrower does not repay a loan In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money. The document evidencing the deb ... or fulfill a loan obligation. For lenders the risk includes late or lost interest and principal payment, leading to disrupted 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- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 deterred 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 hig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
