Internal Ratings Systems, Implied Credit Risk and the Consistency of Banks' Risk Classification Policies

36 Pages Posted: 5 Jun 2006

See all articles by Tor Jacobson

Tor Jacobson

Sveriges Riksbank - Research Division

Kasper Roszbach

Norges Bank - Research Department; University of Groningen - Faculty of Economics and Business

Jesper Lindé

Sveriges Riksbank - Research Division

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Abstract

Although much research has been devoted to external credit ratings, relatively little is known about the workings of banks' internal ratings. This paper aims at improving our understanding of internal risk rating systems (IRS) at large banks and the way in which they are implemented, and at verifying if IRS produce consistent estimates of banks' loan portfolio credit risk. An important property of our work is that we derive our measures of credit risk without making any assumptions about correlations between loans, due to the fact that the size of the data allows us to apply Carey's [16] non-parametric Monte Carlo re-sampling method. We find substantial differences between the implied loss distributions of the two banks with equal regulatory risk profiles; both expected losses and the credit loss rates at a wide range of loss distribution percentiles vary considerably. Such variation will most likely translate into different levels of required economic capital. Our results also confirm the quantitative importance of size for portfolio credit risk: for common parameter values, we find that tail risk can be reduced by up to 40 percent by doubling portfolio size. Our analysis makes clear that not only the formal design of a rating system, but also the way in which it is implemented (e.g. a portfolio's rating grade composition; the degree of homogeneity within rating classes) can be quantitatively important for the shape of credit loss distributions and thus for banks' required capital structure. The evidence of differences between lenders also hints at the presence of differentiated market equilibria, that are more complex than might otherwise be supposed: different lending or risk management styles may emerge and banks strike their own balance between risk-taking and (the cost of) monitoring (that risk).

Keywords: Internal ratings, rating systems, credit risk, tails, Value-at-Risk, banks, Basel II

JEL Classification: C14, C15, G21, G28, G33

Suggested Citation

Jacobson, Tor and Roszbach, Kasper F. and Linde, Jesper, Internal Ratings Systems, Implied Credit Risk and the Consistency of Banks' Risk Classification Policies. Journal of Banking and Finance, Forthcoming, Riksbank Research Paper No. 3, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=906549

Tor Jacobson

Sveriges Riksbank - Research Division ( email )

S-103 37 Stockholm
Sweden
+46 8 787 0000 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: www.riksbank.com

Kasper F. Roszbach (Contact Author)

Norges Bank - Research Department ( email )

P.O. Box 1179
Oslo, N-0107
Norway

University of Groningen - Faculty of Economics and Business ( email )

Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance
Nettelbosje 2
Groningen, NL 9747 AE
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.rug.nl/staff/k.f.roszbach/

Jesper Linde

Sveriges Riksbank - Research Division ( email )

S-103 37 Stockholm
Sweden
+46 8 787 0873 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.riksbank.com

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
505
Abstract Views
2,439
Rank
22,692
PlumX Metrics