Australian bank capital less than claimed
Australian banks may have exaggerated their capital buffers and relied on implausible comparisons with the capital strength of offshore banks, according to a critique by John Watson of Margate Financial Research Solutions and Graham Andersen of Morgij Analytics.
Watson and Andersen analysed the often repeated claim by Australia's major banks, endorsed by the Australian Bankers' Association, that their capital ratios include a generous surplus over minimum requirements and are high compared with many international banks.
The ABA, for example, wrote in March that: "Australia's more conservative implementation of Basel III capital standards means that, although our banks are subject to stricter requirements, they appear less capitalised than their peers. This is due to the approach taken for the calculation of the capital ratios of Australia."
The ABA put the industry's capital adequacy ratio at 11.8 per cent.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, puts the industry's capital adequacy ratio for all ADIs (excluding foreign branch banks and 'other ADIs') at 12.2 per cent at March 2014. For major banks, this ratio was 11.9 per cent.
Watson and Andersen, both independent researchers, produced alternative views on the sufficiency of bank capital in Australia, based on Basel standards and inspired in part by a March 2014 review by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision of Australia's conformity to global banking rules.
That review, they said, found that "12 of the 14 components assessed are graded as compliant; while two components (definition of capital and the Internal Ratings-based approach for credit risk) are regarded as being largely compliant."
"The other components of the Basel framework are assessed as compliant, with only some non- material or non-significant differences," Watson and Andersen said of the BCBS' conclusions.
Watson and Andersen find plenty of scope to make mischief with each arena of non-compliance to sustain their critique.
They argued that banks were not making valid or explainable comparisons and that international banks made too little disclosure to support the comparisons advanced by Australian banks.
They said that, given the "the low level of disclosure from banks in general across the globe and the lack of consistency and transparency of IRB model parameters, inputs and outputs, any estimate of an internationally harmonised capital ratio by any individual bank can be assumed to have a low level of confidence attached to it."
"Given these uncertainties, it would be more appropriate for any bank publishing an internationally harmonised capital ratio to indicate a range of possible capital ratio outcomes to investors given the low degree of accuracy that any such calculations are able to be given.
"Moreover; the lack of consistency between the harmonisation methodologies adopted by the Australian Majors in areas such as treatment of loss given default and specialised lending casts further doubt on the veracity of the published harmonised capital ratios."
Watson and Andersen point to work by the International Accounting Standards Board and Financial Accounting Standards Board "to develop new financial reporting requirements for the impairment of financial instruments and the disclosure requirements … these initiatives should increase the quality of credit risk disclosure, and may help improve comparability between banks."
But they conclude: "The underlying assumption that all overseas peers have only implemented the absolute minimum capital adequacy standards is highly dubious."
"The bottom line is that comparing the capital adequacy of Australia's [major banks] to international peers is not all one way."