What does the “economic perspective” add to an ICAAP?

… is the question I reflected on as I read the ECB Report on Banks’ ICAAP Practices (August 2020).

That I should be asking the question is even more curious given the years I spent working with economic capital but there was something in the ECB position that I was not comfortable with. There is nothing particularly wrong in the ways that the ECB envisages that an economic perspective can add value to a bank’s ICAAP. The problem (for me), I came to realise, is more the lack of emphasis on recognising the fundamental limitations of economic models. In short, my concern is that the detailed focus on risk potentially comes at the expense of an equally useful consideration of the ways in which a bank is subject to radical uncertainty.

The rest of this post offers an overview of what the ECB survey observed and some thoughts on the value of explicitly incorporating radical uncertainty into an ICAAP.

The ECB report sample set

The ECB report, based on a survey of 37 significant institutions it supervises, assesses the extent to which these organisations were complying (as at April 2019) with ECB expectations for how the ICAAP should be constructed and executed. The selected sample focuses on the larger (and presumably more sophisticated) banks, including all global systematically important banks supervised by the ECB. I am straying outside my area of expertise (Australian bank capital management) in this post but there is always something to learn from considering another perspective.

The ECB assessment on ICAAP practices

The ECB notes that progress has been made in some areas of the ICAAP. In particular; all banks in the survey have risk identification processes in place, they produce summary documents (“Capital Adequacy Statements” in ECB parlance) that enable bank management (not just the technical specialists) to engage with and take responsibility for the capital strength of their bank and the sample banks do incorporate stress testing into their capital planning process.

The ECB believes however that there is still a lot of room for improvement. The general area of concern is that the banks it supervises are still not paying sufficient attention to the question of business continuity. The ECB cites three key areas as being particularly in need of improvement if the ICAAPs are to play their assigned role in effectively contributing to a bank’s continuity:

Data quality
The application of the “Economic Perspective” in the ICAAP
Stress testing

The value of building the ICAAP on sound data and testing the outcomes of the process under a variety of severe stress scenarios is I think uncontentious.

The value the economic perspective contributes is less black and white. Like many thing in life, the challenge is to get the balance right. My perspective is that economic models are quite useful but they are far from a complete answer and dangerous when they create an illusion of knowledge, certainty and control.

The economic internal perspective

The ECB’s guide to the ICAAP defines the term “economic internal perspective” as follows:

“Under this perspective, the institution’s assessment is expected to cover the full universe of risks that may have a material impact on its capital position from an economic perspective. In order to capture the undisguised economic situation, this perspective is not based on accounting or regulatory provisions. Rather, it should take into account economic value considerations for all economically relevant aspects, including assets, liabilities and risks. …. The institution is expected to manage economic risks and assess them as part of its stress-testing framework and its monitoring and management of capital adequacy”
ECB Guide to the internal capital adequacy assessment process (ICAAP) – Principles, November 2018 (Paragraph 49 / pages 18-19)

So far so good – the key points seem (to me) to be quite fair as statements of principle.

The ECB sees value in looking beyond the accounting and regulatory measures that drive the reported capital ratios (the “normative perspective” in ECB terminology) and wants banks to consider “the full universe of risks that may have a material impact on its capital position”. The ECB Report also emphasises the importance of thinking about capital from a “business continuity” perspective and cites the “… unjustified inclusions of certain capital components (e.g. minority interests, Additional Tier 1 … or Tier 2 … instruments) … which can inflate the internal capital figures” as evidence of banks failing to meet this expectation. Again a fair point in my view.

These are all worthy objectives but I wonder

firstly about the capacity of economic capital models to reliably deliver the kinds of insights the ECB expects and
secondly whether there are more cost effective ways to achieve similar outcomes.

The value of a different perspective

As a statement of principle, the value of bringing a different perspective to bear clearly has value. The examples that the ECB cites for ways in which the economic perspective can inform and enhance the normative perspective are all perfectly valid and potentially useful. My concern is that the ECB seems to be pursuing an ideal state in which an ICAAP can, with sufficient commitment and resources, achieve a degree of knowledge that enables a bank to control its future.

Business continuity is ultimately founded on a recognition that there are limits to what we can know about the future and I side with the risk philosophy that no amount of analysis will fundamentally change this.

The ECB’s economic perspective does not neccesarily capture radical uncertainty

I have touched on the general topic of uncertainty and what it means for the ICAAP a couple of times in this blog. The ECB report mentions “uncertainty” twice; once in the context of assessing climate change risk

Given the uncertainty surrounding the timing of climate change and its negative consequences, as well as the potentially far-reaching impact in breadth and magnitude along several transmission channels via which climate-related risks may impact banks’ capital adequacy, it is rather concerning that almost one-third of the banks has not even considered these risks in their risk identification processes at all.
Page 39

… and then in the context of making allowances for data quality

However, … in an internal deep dive on risk quantification in 2019, half of the risk quantifications showed material deficiencies. This finding is exacerbated by the data quality issues generally observed and moreover by the fact that one-half of the banks does not systematically ensure that the uncertainty surrounding the accuracy of risk quantifications (model risk) is appropriately addressed by an increased level of conservatism.
Page 54

This is not a question of whether we should expect that banks can demonstrate that they are thinking about climate change and making allowances for model risk along with a host of other plausible sources of adverse outcomes. It is a surprise that any relatively large and sophisticated banks might be found wanting in the ways in which these risks are being assessed and the ECB is right to call that out.

However, it is equally surprising (for me at least) that the ECB did not seem to see value in systematically exploring the extent to which the ICAAPs of the banks it supervises deal with the potential for radical uncertainty.

Business continuity is far more likely if banks can also demonstrate that they recognise the limits of what they can know about the future and actively plan to deal with being surprised by the unexpected. In short one of the key ICAAP practices I would be looking for is evidence that banks have explicitly made allowances for the potential for their capital plan to have to navigate and absorb “unknown unknowns”.

For what it is worth, my template for how a bank might make explicit allowances in the ICAAP for unknown unknowns is included in this post on the construction of calibration of cyclical capital buffers. My posts on the broader issue of risk versus uncertainty can be found on the following links:

Feel free to let me know what I am missing …

Tony – From the Outside

Author: From the Outside

After working in the Australian banking system for close to four decades, I am taking some time out to write and reflect on what I have learned. My primary area of expertise is bank capital management but this blog aims to offer a bank insider's outside perspective on banking, capital, economics, finance and risk. View all posts by From the Outside