The Opportunistic Upside of New Capital Rules

Looming new capital rules are an opportunity for banks to improve strategic planning and data management as they strengthen their compliance and reporting processes.

The coronavirus pandemic has delayed deadlines for complying with the latest round of capital guidelines dictated by Basel IV. Still, financial institutions should not lose sight of the importance of preparing for Basel IV, the difficulties it will create along the way and the ways they can leverage it as a potential asset. Compliance and implementation may be a significant expenditure for your bank. Starting now will lengthen your institution’s path to greater productivity and profitability to become a better bank, not just a more compliant one.

At Wolters Kluwer, we broke down the task – and opportunity – at hand for banks as they approach Basel IV compliance in our new whitepaper “Basel IV – Your Path to a more Profitable Business.” Here are some of the highlights for your bank:

Making Basel IV For Business
Where there is a will – along with the right tools – there’s a way to leverage the work required to comply with Basel IV for other commercial objectives. The new capital rules emphasize using forward-looking analysis, a holistic, collaborative organizational structure and data management capabilities for compliance and reporting purposes. These tools can all be leveraged for strategic planning and other commercial objectives, reducing or controlling long-term expenses while enhancing efficiency.

Central to this approach, however, is adopting the right attitude and approach. Executives should view Basel IV compliance as a potential asset, not just a liability, and be willing to make changes to the structure of operations and supporting data management systems.

A Familiar Approach
Basel IV is not a monolithic set of edicts; instead, it’s a package of regulatory regimens through which the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s guidelines will be put into practice. These measures are actually the final version of the Basel III guidelines issued in 2010 but were seen as such an expansion of what came before as to be thought of as an entirely new program. It contains elements that encourage and even require banks to act in ways that enhance business practices, not just compliance.

One element is the mandate for a holistic, collaborative approach to compliance. All functions within an institution must work in concert with one another, to create a data-driven, dynamic, three-dimensional view of the world. Another point of emphasis is the importance of prospective thinking: anticipating events from a range of alternatives, instead of accumulating and analyzing data that shows only the present state of play.

“What now?” to “What if?”
Banks can use Basel’s compliance and reporting data for business intelligence and strategic planning. Compliance efforts that have been satisfactorily implemented and disseminated allow  executives to create dynamic simulations displaying prospective outcomes under a range of scenarios.

The possibilities of leveraging Basel IV for business extends to the individual deal level. Calculations and analysis used for compliance can be easily repurposed to forecast the rewards and risks of a deal under a range of financial and economic scenarios whose probabilities themselves can be approximated. And because a firm’s risk models already will have been vetted in meeting Basel IV compliance standards, bankers can be confident that the results produced in the deal evaluation will be robust and reliable.

Another big-picture use of Basel IV for business is balance sheet optimization: forecasting the best balance sheet size for a given risk appetite. This can show the board opportunities that increase risk slightly but obtain far more profit, or sacrifice a bit of income to substantially reduce risk.

To turn Basel IV’s potential for business into practice requires openness and communication from senior executives to the key personnel who will have to work together to bring the plan to fruition. It will mean adopting a mindset that considers each decision, from the details of individual deals to strategic planning, along with its likely impact. Staff must also be supported by similarly structured data management architecture.

The emphasis on forward-looking analysis and a holistic, collaborative organizational structure for compliance and reporting purposes, supported by data management capabilities designed along the same lines, can be leveraged for strategic planning and other commercial objectives. Success in streamlining operations and maximizing productivity and profit potential, and any edge gained over the competition, can reap especially great long-term rewards when achieved at times like these. Leaders of financial institutions have a lot on their minds these days, but there is a persuasive case to be made right now for seizing the opportunity presented by Basel IV for business.