Episode highlights

“I’ll give you an example. So the Canadian regulators that came into effect this year, they’ve given banks an option of how to treat unrated banks. You can use the simplified approach. So one risk weight for all unrated banks, but you’ve got to stick with it. You can’t swap and choose or you can adopt the SCRA. So most Canadian banks have opted for the simplified approach. “Let’s just stick with I think it’s 50% risk weight. That’s not a bad compromise. We might not benefit from a 30% or a 40% risk weight, but we are avoiding the 150% risk way.” So it was the regulators of Canada to make that decision on what’s best for their country. And every country will implement something slightly different I think.”

– Paul Whitmore (09:32)

“So this will probably have the largest impact. I think what people have to try and think about is it’s not just this unrated bank thing. It’s how bank exposures are being treated by all of the Basel proposals. So no longer can you estimate your own LGD. Okay, you could use your own rating assessment previously.”

– Paul Whitmore (13:11)

“Okay, so that again, the framework is still being adopted, but there’s nuances and every jurisdiction is going to have a slightly different flavor to it. Australia didn’t implement the SCRA. They’re fully on board with the Basel III final reforms, but decided on a simplified approach again. They felt after speaking to three or four of the larger banks in Australia, they said APRA felt that the SCRA was too complicated, which I don’t think it is. As these banks were laughing at that saying, “Well, we all said it was a great approach, that APRA decided that it was too complicated to implement at this time.” So they’ve gone for a simplified approach again.”

– Paul Whitmore (16:56)