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Commodities and the Capital Requirements Directive

Commodities and the Capital Requirements Directive. RWE Workshop December 2005 Slides prepared by ISDA. What is set to change ?. MiFID Article 2.1(i) and (k) exemptions are to be reviewed by the Commission in March/April 2008, and may then be amended or repealed.

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Commodities and the Capital Requirements Directive

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  1. Commodities and the Capital Requirements Directive RWE Workshop December 2005 Slides prepared by ISDA

  2. What is set to change ? • MiFID Article 2.1(i) and (k) exemptions are to be reviewed by the Commission in March/April 2008, and may then be amended or repealed. • If so, some commodity firms may become subject to CRD for their financial activities. • Questions : • What will be the perimeter of their business subject to capital rules? • Is the CRD the appropriate regulatory instrument ? • Should the CRD be recalibrated to a different solvency target ? • Should approaches to each one of the risks identified in the CRD be amended for commodity firms ?

  3. Advocacy tactics • Joint Working Group set up by ISDA, EFET, FOA • Various sources of information : • FOA-KPMG questionnaire • EFET hypothetical portfolio testing • CFRC Compendium ( www.isda.org ) • Breakdown of responsibilities : • ISDA : credit risk/credit risk mitigation • EFET: market risk • FOA: operational risk • Group has established contact with Commission and domestic regulators (FSA, BaFIN) • All relevant documents produced in the WG are available at https://www.isdadocs.org/c_and_a/risk_manage.html#COMMODITY

  4. Perimeter of activities subject to capital requirements • Starting point will be MiFID. Products included are defined at Annex I Section C and include most commodity derivatives, with the exception of contracts entered into for commercial purposes. (7) Options, futures, swaps, forwards and any other derivative contracts relating to commodities, that can be physically settled not otherwise mentioned in C.6 and not being for commercial purposes, which have the characteristics of other derivative financial instruments, having regard to whether, inter alia, they are cleared and settled through recognised clearing houses or are subject to regular margin calls.

  5. Perimeter of activities subject to capitalrequirements • Key questions for capital purposes : • 1) Should the proposed capital regime apply to the whole consolidated balance sheet of firms ? Or just to their trading activities? • 2)   Do participants believe that the scope of the proposed capital framework should be the same as that of MiFID ? In particular, would it make sense to also include SPOT commodity positions in the calculation of market risk capital ? Further, for credit risk purposes, is it reasonable to focus purely on derivatives entered into for non commercial purposes, where netting sets might also include commercial transactions ? • 3)   If a firm has trading outlets in several EU countries, should it be supervised at a consolidated level ? On what basis should the consolidating supervisor be determined ?

  6. Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) • Transposes the new Capital Accord into EU law. Approved on 28 September 2005 • Implementation staggered : • 1/1/2007 for firms using simple approaches • 1/1/2008 for firms using sophisticated approaches

  7. CRD • CRD : 3 Pillar approach : • Pillar 1 : minimum capital requirements; • Pillar 2 : supervisory review. May lead to additional capital requirements • Pillar 3 : disclosure requirements • Fundamental question : Is CRD adapted to risks borne by commodity firms on their derivative business ?

  8. CRD • Commodity firms do not pose the same risks as financial institutions : • NO depositor/investor exposure • NO systemic risk (Enron failure) • Risks on the physical side already monitored by physical regulators • This has motivated light touch capital regulation in the EU • And no regulation in other key countries (US, Switzerland)

  9. CRD • Commodity firms’ special case is acknowledged at political level in the EU: • CRD Recital 19 (b) The goal of liberalisation of gas and electricity markets is both an economically and politically important goal for the Community. With this in mind, the capital requirements, and other prudential rules, to be applied to firms active in those markets need to be proportionate and should not unduly interfere with achievement of the goal of liberalisation.”

  10. CRD • Article 45d of the CAD further institutes a carve-out for commodity firms, which will become regulated by the earlier of end 2010 and the time by which the Commission has proposed an appropriate capital regime. • Calendar is set by the Commission : industry understands that they are planning to conduct the capital review in parallel with the MiFID exemptions review, i.e. conclude by spring 2008.

  11. CRD • Conclusion : the case for applying the CRD to commodity firms has not been made • Further, even if a CRD type approach were retained, the target insolvency level should be distinct from that applied to financial institutions. • Target pursued for financial institutions based on Basel I. No equivalent regime to Basel I exists for commodity firms. • If a lower target is retained, e.g. 99th percentile instead of 99.9th, credit risk and operational risk capital charges are reduced respectively by 50% and 33%. QUESTION : DO MEMBERS OF THE CFRC WISH TO ARGUE FOR A RECALIBRATION OF THE CRD ? IF SO, WHAT PERCENTILE SHOULD BE USED ?

  12. Credit charge re-calibrated at 99.9th perc.

  13. Credit risk charge re-calibrated at 99th perc.

  14. Operational risk charge re-calibrated at 99th perc. • Operational risk charge is intended to represent on average 12% of total regulatory capital for fis. • Commodity firms are likely to use the Basic Indicator Approach , i.e. calculate op risk capital as a fixed percentage, alpha, of average income. • Currently, alpha corresponding to a 99.9th worst case op risk scenario, is 15%. • We are seeking to re-calibrate alpha at the 99th percentile. • Assuming a split between the various forms of capital (market, credit and operational) in firms’ overall reg cap, it is possible to compute the % of income which the operational risk charge should represent if it were calibrated at the 99th percentile.

  15. Operational risk charge re-calibrated at 99th perc. • Assumptions [To be verified, based on metal traders’ experience in the UK, and the EFET hypothetical testing exercise]: • Overall cap charge split as follows : • Market: 30% • Credit: 58% • Operational: 12% • Then, the operational risk charge should be computed as 10% of income under the Basic Indicator Approach, implying a reduction in alpha value of 1/3.

  16. CRD Main Risks • Under CRD, 3 main risks must be capitalised • Credit Risk • Market Risk • Operational Risk • All three risks are relevant to commodity firms’ commodity derivatives activities. Question is : should CRD be modified with respect to each one of these risks for commodity firms ?

  17. Counterparty credit risk • Counterparty Credit Risk arising from commodity derivatives activities : • Capital = 8% . RW . EAD • RW is the Risk Weight: • Standardised, function of external rating of counterparty, and in the absence of a rating, 100% (in general). • Articles 78 to 83 of CID, Annex VI of CID- Basel Accord paras 53 to 68 • Internal Ratings Based: a function of the credit quality of the counterparty, expected recovery rate and tenor of the credit risk (Effective Maturity M) • Articles 84 to 89 of CID, Annex VII of CID- Basel Accord paras 271 to 324

  18. New approach to calculating EAD Spectrum approach to calculating EAD: EPE modelling Approach (IMM) Standardised Method Current Exposure Method (CEM)

  19. Counterparty credit risk • Questions for commodity firms : • Which approach will they use to calculate the RW. Are there specific obstacles which they would like to see removed in the CRD ? • Which EAD computation approach would they like to adopt ? • Which amendments to these approaches would they wish to see applied : e.g. more commodity buckets and different CCFs under the SM, lower add-ons under the CEM ?

  20. Credit Risk Mitigation (CRM) issues • Credit Risk Mitigation recognised by regulators subject to stringent criteria (Articles 90-101 of CID, Annex VIII) • Two main forms of mitigation: • Funded (collateral) • Unfunded (credit derivatives, guarantees, letters of credit)

  21. CRM issues • Questions for commodity firms: • Are any forms of widely used credit risk mitigation not recognised under the CRD ?

  22. Market risk • Questions for commodity firms : • Which approach are they likely to adopt ? • What difficulties will they encounter in developing their chosen approach ? Should the rules be made more flexible to adjust for these ? E.g., under the standardised approach, by relying on forward prices rather than spot prices and removing the charge for matched positions within bands ? • Is a simple modeling approach useful ? • German commodity firms have proposed one to BaFIN, based on historical simulation and VaR; • Market values of last 51 days of trading are generated for the portfolio; based on this set of data, a mean change in value, as well as the standard deviation of value changes are calculated; • The capital charge is set equal to : [Normsinv(99%) *SQUROOT(10) * STDEV+10*Abs(MEAN)]*1.5

  23. Operational Risk • Risk capitalised for the first time by regulators in Basel II • Articles 103 to 105 of CID, Annex X • Three approaches : • Basic indicator approach: • Charge = 15% of average net income over 3 years; • Standardised approach: • Charge= 18% (trading and sales) of average net income over 3 years (for firms mostly trading : 15% instead of 18%) • Advanced measurement approach : loss data distributions (99.9%, 1 year) + external data + scenario testing. • Which approach are commodity firms likely to choose ? Any particular difficulty in implementing it ?

  24. Unsettled Transactions • Scope: which transactions will be subject to treatment? • Where covered by scope, what is mechanism - delivery vs payment/delivery, or not? • What is the settlement period - over or under 5 days? • Would a carve-out from the long settlement treatment be justifiable ?

  25. Recap on key questions • Should commodity firms be regulated for capital purposes ? • What business should be regulated ? • If regulation applies, should commodity firms be subject to a lighter touch capital regime than financial institutions ? For instance calibrated on a less onerous solvency standard? • Where could the capital requirements be made lighter ? Operational risk ? Credit risk ? Market risk ? Large exposures ?

  26. Useful contact details • ISDA : • esebton@isda.org (CRD related matters) • pwerner@isda.org (Energy, Commodity and Developing Products Committee)

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