Posted by Yaron Nili, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Friday, January 9, 2015
The following post comes to us from Dan Ryan, Leader of the Financial Services Advisory Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and is based on a PwC publication by Mr. Ryan, Kevin Clarke, Roozbeh Alavi, and Dan Weiss. The complete publication, including appendix, is available here.
On November 10th, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) issued a long-awaited consultative document that defined a global standard for minimum amounts of Total Loss Absorbency Capacity (TLAC) to be held by Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs). TLAC is meant to ensure that G-SIBs have the loss absorbing and recapitalization capacity so that, in and immediately following resolution, critical functions can continue without requiring taxpayer support or threatening financial stability.
The FSB’s document requires a G-SIB to hold a minimum amount of regulatory capital (Tier 1 and Tier 2) plus long term unsecured debt that together are at least 16-20% [1] of its risk weighted assets (RWA), i.e., at least twice the minimum Basel III total regulatory capital ratio of 8%. In addition, the amount of a firm’s regulatory capital and unsecured long term debt cannot be less than 6% of its leverage exposure, i.e., at least twice the Basel III leverage ratio. In addition to this “Pillar 1” requirement, TLAC would also include a subjective component (called “Pillar 2”) to be assessed for each firm individually, based on qualitative firm-specific risks that take into account the firm’s recovery and resolution plans, systemic footprint, risk profile, and other factors.
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