Written in response to a current gap in academic and industry based literature, this thesis was written on the topic of Trade Based Money Laundering (TBML) and risk assessment, within the banking context. Despite the increased use of TBML, most academic descriptions of money laundering have used the cash based model of placement and integration of large cash deposits acquired from criminal activity, which are then merged into legitimate pre-existing funds. However, there are a significant number of examples to show that cash transferred into goods and then shipped to other countries can be easier to move and less conspicuous or traceable than simple cash based deposits. One of the main challenges for detecting shipping based laundering techniques is that they involve a number of agencies sharing data and information, in order to catch the criminals. Simple banking checks may not always elicit the required information without verification from either customs or law enforcement agencies. The research sought to identify the current challenges and issues facing risk assessment professionals in the banking sector and to identify gaps in the current systems being used. The data collected included interviews and survey information taken from professionals working on AML risk assessment in banking and financial institutions from across the globe. In addition to the description of different money laundering schemes, much of the current academic discussion on money laundering in banking has focused on the regulation requirements for financial institutions to stop money laundering activity, but there has been little empirical guidance on how regulation can be adapted and implemented at the individual banking level. This research accessed a number of legal cases available in the public domain, which were analysed to see how and where some of the larger banks have failed to implement current anti-money laundering controls and to consider how this could impact on the detection of TBML activity. This research uses an Agency theory model to look at the pressures banks are under to manage client’s accounts efficiently, versus the requirements of outside regulation to undertake extensive checks on business transactions and accounts. Finally, the researcher proposed a simple risk matrix approach that developed the current thinking of client behaviour and transaction monitoring risk analysis associated with cash based laundering, to develop a four-point risk model that added geography and third party behaviour, to account for shipping and trade based laundering activity.

This thesis has two aims; to explore the economic notions of trust to develop a coherent understanding of trust within economics and to apply this understanding to the operation of money and banking. There has been a recent explosion of work about trust within economics but little consensus. This thesis explores this body of work by first developing a framework based on the different perceptions of the work of Adam Smith. The framework argues that the academic discipline of economics can be understood as mirroring the discussions of the work of Adam Smith. The Academic discipline of economics can be seen as comprising of approaches that only consider behaviour as relating to self-interested and those approaches that have adopted a stance that includes both self-interest and social, organic behaviour. The beginning of this thesis explores the notions of trust offered by Behavioural Game Theory and Institutional Economics and argues that the notions of trust developed using the institutional framework offer a richer conceptualisation and are more widely applicable to other areas addressed by economics. This concludes by developing a theory of trust in the institutional tradition based on the work of Simmel and draws a distinction between trust as applied to agency and confidence applied to structure. After drawing a distinction between trust and confidence based on agency and structure, this thesis then uses this theory to address the understanding of the operation of money and then banking. Money, or more specifically the operation of money as influencing behaviour, can be understood as being a complex institution with both agency and structural elements allowing a coherent understanding of money and trust. The same can be said of trust and banking, but a very different model develops as banks are organisations rather than complex institutions. This thesis concludes by considering the current financial crisis and the policy responses using the trust and confidence framework. Trust has been an important concept for money and banking, but without a satisfactory framework for analysis. The contribution of this thesis is to have developed a coherent framework for analysing trust, and applying it to money and banking.

This thesis analyses financial stability in eight members of the Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP) economies. One of the factors that may increase financial imbalances (and hence it affects financial stability of an economy) is the accumulated outstanding debt of the economic agents. For example, the corporate sector’s outstanding debt can negatively affect activity of lenders and hence the capabilities of the economy. Since banks are important financial intermediaries in most financial systems, the financial status of banking sector is also important to analyse financial stability of a country. Macroeconomic conditions and financial system structure are some of the important factors that can affect financial conditions (financial soundness) of banks and hence the banking sector. Financial soundness of banks can secure the stability of the financial system. Chapter 2 shows that financial imbalances that arise from accumulated outstanding debt within the corporate sector have a negative effect on the technical capabilities (total factor productivity) of the economy. Therefore, monetary authority (central bank) should control over the debt level. To address this, chapter 2 focuses on the design of monetary policy rule for a small open economy in the context of a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model. This model is extended to show the effects of financial imbalances on the economy. Real exchange rate is another important factor that affects the firm’s real marginal cost, aggregate supply and aggregate demand as discussed in this chapter. The derived optimal monetary policy rule indicates that the monetary authority responds to financial imbalances through output gap when financial imbalances exist due to accumulated outstanding debt. Moreover, the optimal policy rule shows that the response of the monetary authority to exchange rate movements is indirect, through the domestic inflation and output gap. Chapter 3 describes the effect of the financial system structure on financial stability through investigating the financial soundness of the banking sector. Bank financial soundness is the measure of the stability of the financial system and is defined by return on assets, equity capital-asset ratio and return volatility. The first two items increase financial soundness, whereas return volatility decreases financial soundness of a bank. The structure of the financial system is described as market-based or bank-based. Given interrelations between financial sectors and between economies of the EMEAP countries, chapter 3 uses the global (infinite dimensional) vector autoregressive (VAR) model that has been proposed recently to estimate the generalised impulse responses of financial stability measure. Results show that the market-based financial system can increase financial stability through increasing financial soundness of the banking system. Chapter 4 uses nonperforming loans (NPLs) (as one of the main factors behind Asian financial crisis in 1997/8) to analyse financial soundness of banks. NPLs determine loans default rates that decreases banks’ financial soundness. Chapter 4 tests the resistance of the banking system of the EMEAP countries to large macroeconomic shocks (stresses) in a stress-test framework, computing frequency distributions of default rates in three main macroeconomic scenarios (baseline model, stressed real GDP growth and stressed real interest rate). Default rate indicates the possible loss of banks and hence it is an indicator of credit risk which weakens banks’ financial strength. The stress-test indicates that stressing real GDP growth with negative extreme shocks leads to an increase in frequency of higher default rates (in comparison with the baseline model), whereas positive shock to real interest rate may secure financial stability through increasing the frequency of lower default rates and decreasing frequency of higher default rate.

China has undertaken a series of comprehensive economic and banking reform programs over the past three decades. As part of the WTO agreement, the domestic financial sector is fully open to foreign investors from WTO member countries in 2006. To answer the challenges, the policy makers and management of SOCB have been introducing two major steps to improve the Competitiveness of the commercial banks: transfer the bad debts to asset management companies and inject foreign exchange reserves to capital. However, the qualitative study shows that the general performance of the state-owned commercial banks is unstable during this period. It is high time that the consequences and efficiency of the reform were examined on an objective basis. This research offers a careful and rigorous examination of the condition and determinants of banking efficiency and competitiveness in China, with the focus on the state-owned commercial banks. The key contribution of this study is to develop a comprehensive empirical framework to measure and explain the performance of the state-owned commercial banks during the crucial transitional period from 1998 to 2003. This research examines the banking market conditions on the basis of a synthesis of the traditional Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm and other alternative hypotheses. The thesis reveals that the state-owned commercial banks still dominate in both retail and business banking markets. The interest earnings remain the dominant source of commercial revenues. Due to the special relationship with government and their operational characters in the financial market, the state-owned commercial banks are not sensitive to monetary policy adjustments. The competition from other type of commercial banks has been strengthening, but the impact is rather limited. The main contribution of this study to the empirical literature on the Chinese banking market is the employment of the Data Envelopment Analysis to measure the efficiency of the state-owned commercial banks at provincial level, followed by a panel econometric investigation into the differences in banking efficiency across the stat-owned commercial banking groups as well as individual provinces. The results show that the level of banking efficiency was generally very low and there was a significant extent of input surplus among the provincial branches. The source of inefficiency is different among individual banking groups. The econometric study reveals that the SOCBs benefit from the concentrated market structure and strong complementary relationship with their traditional business areas. The empirical results have also shed light on further policy measures to enhance banking competition and performance in China.

Banking has a unique role in the well-being of an economy. This role makes banks one of the most heavily regulated and supervised industries. In order to strengthen the soundness and stability of banking systems, regulators require banks to hold adequate capital. While credit risk was the only risk that was covered by the original Basle Accord, with the 1996 amendment, banks have also been required to assign capital for their market risk starting from 1998. In this research, the impact of the market risk capital regulations on bank capital levels and derivative activities is investigated. In addition, this study also evaluates the impact of using different approaches that are allowed to be used while calculating the required market risk capital, as well as the accuracy of VaR models. The implementation of the market risk capital regulations can influence banks either by increasing their capital or by decreasing their trading activities and in particular trading derivative activities. The literature review concerning capital regulations illustrates that in particular the impact of these regulations on bank capital levels and derivative activities is an issue that has not yet been explored. In order to fill this gap, the changes in capital and derivatives usage ratios are modelled by using a partial adjustment framework. The main results of this analysis suggest that the implementation of the market risk capital regulations has a significant and positive impact on the risk-based capital ratios of BHCs. However, the results do not indicate any impact of these regulations on derivative activities. The empirical findings also demonstrate that there is no significant relationship between capital and derivatives. The market risk capital regulations allow the use of either a standardised approach or the VaR methodologies to determine the required capital amounts to cover market risk. In order to evaluate these approaches, firstly differences on bank VaR practices are investigated by employing a documentary analysis. The documentary analysis is conducted to demonstrate the differences in bank VaR practices by comparing the VaR models of 25 international banks. The survey results demonstrate that there, is no industry consensus on the methodology for calculating VaR. This analysis also indicates that the assumptions in estimating VaR models vary considerably among financial institutions. Therefore, it is very difficult for financial market participants to make comparisons across institutions by considering single VaR values. Secondly, the required capital amounts are calculated for two hypothetical foreign exchange portfolios by using both the standardised and three different VaR methodologies, and then these capital amounts are compared. These simulations are conducted to understand to what extent the market risk capital regulations approaches produce different outcomes on the capital levels. The results indicate that the VaR estimates are dependent upon the VaR methodology. Thirdly, three backtesting methodologies are applied to the VaR models. The results indicate that a VaR model that provides accurate estimates for a specific portfolio could fail when the portfolio composition changes. The results of the simulations indicate that the market risk capital regulations do not provide a `level playing field' for banks that are subject to these regulations. In addition, giving an option to banks to determine the VaR methodology could create a moral hazard problem as banks may choose an inaccurate model that provides less required capital amounts.

C. Fred Bergsten, William R. Cline, John Williamson. / "April 1985." / Includes bibliographical references.

Charles Goodhart. / Includes index. / Bibliography: p. [185]-194.

Το θεσμικό – ρυθμιστικό πλαίσιο και ο ρόλος του έχουν σημαντική θέση στην ορθολογική και αποτελεσματική εξέλιξη του χρηματοοικονομικού συστήματος, με την έννοια ότι μπορούν να επιταχύνουν την οικονομική ανάπτυξή του. Σπουδαία κρίνεται η χρησιμότητα της παρούσης μελέτης έγκειται στην ανάδειξη την σημασίας των ρυθμιστικών παρεμβάσεων σε κοινοτικό επίπεδο για την διασφάλιση της ομαλής και αξιόπιστης λειτουργίας των αγορών χρήματος και κεφαλαίου.Έτσι κι αλλιώς όλοι γνωρίζουμε ότι πλέον το οικονομικό περιβάλλον είναι ενιαίο και δέχεται συνεχείς αλληλεπιδράσεις. Γι αυτό το λόγο στην παρούσα μελέτη θα εξεταστεί το φαινόμενο της τρέχουσας οικονομικής κρίσης σε σχέση με την υφιστάμενη κατάσταση του ρυθμιστικού πλαισίου. Σκοπός είναι να καταδειχθούν οι αδυναμίες του στο πλαίσιο των παγκοσμιοποιημένων αγορών χρήματος και κεφαλαίου και της ανάπτυξης των διασυνοριακών συναλλαγών. θα κάνουμε αναφορά στις τελευταίες προτάσεις της Ευρωπαϊκής Επιτροπής σχετικά με την επανεξέταση του υπάρχοντος ρυθμιστικού πλαισίου έτσι όπως αυτές έχουν διατυπωθεί μέσω των επίσημων αρμόδιων Επιτροπών και Οργάνων με στόχο την εξυγίανση του ρυθμιστικού και εποπτικού πλαισίου. Κοινός τόπος της δημόσιας συζήτησης, πλέον, είναι η αναδιάρθρωση του υφιστάμενου ρυθμιστικού πλαισίου προς την ολοκλήρωση του σε διεθνές επίπεδο. / The regulating and legal framework has an exceptional role in the rational and effective development of the financing system, as it accelerates its economic growth. The present study sets emphasis on the importance of regulating interventions in the European Community as well as globally, in order to insecure the smooth and reliable operation of the market. The need for organized Capital markets is without doubt vital,so the existence of these also creates the need for independent supervisory authorities such as the Capital Market Commission. Also, our aim is to examine the correlation between the market's volality during the economic crisis we are still facing , and the effectiveness of the existing regulation and supervisory framework. At this point the European Committee is re-examining the governing policies that the supervisory authorities use as they were proved incapable to predict and to find the answers to the market problems. The reconsideration is about to happen so we present the propositions of the European Commission referring to the new "architectural" model of the framework.

Cette thèse se compose de trois chapitres. Le premier chapitre analyse l'impact de la structure actionnariale et des réformes mises en œuvre dans les années 2000 sur l'efficacité des banques commerciales au Vietnam. Les résultats montrent que l'efficacité diffère selon le type de structure actionnariale ; les banques d'État ont des niveaux d'efficacité plus bas en comparaison avec les banques privées et les banques avec des actionnaires étrangers. Depuis la mise en œuvre de règles minimales de fonds propres plus strictes, la capitalisation des banques a également été un moteur important de l'efficacité de la banque. Le deuxième chapitre traite de la façon dont les banques au Vietnam fixent leurs marges d'intérêt avec un accent particulier sur la structure actionnariale des banques et la réglementation des taux d'intérêt par la banque centrale. Les résultats montrent que seules les banques privées et publiques transfèrent leurs coûts opérationnels à leurs clients. La capitalisation bancaire qui reflète l'aversion au risque des banques est un déterminant significatif pour les banques étrangères et d'Etat uniquement en cas de réglementation des taux d'intérêt; ces banques ont tendance à répercuter le coût élevé du capital sur les clients. Nous montrons aussi que, en l'absence de contrôle des taux d'intérêt, les banques étrangères fixent des marges plus élevées quand elles prennent un risque de crédit plus élevé alors qu'en présence de la réglementation des taux d'intérêt les banques privées font face à un risque de crédit plus élevé sans pouvoir augmenter leur marge en conséquence. Le dernier chapitre étudie l'impact de la politique monétaire et des conditions économiques sur les prêts bancaires pour les différents niveaux de capitalisation des banques. Les résultats indiquent que tous les types de chocs de politique monétaire ont un effet négatif sur les prêts, mais que l'augmentation de la liquidité bancaire conduit à une réduction plus faible de la croissance des prêts. Enfin, les banques dont la capitalisation est plus faible sont moins influencées par le cycle économique. / This dissertation is composed of three chapters. The first chapter analyzes the impact of ownership structure and the reforms implemented in the mid 2000's on the efficiency of commercial banks in Vietnam. The results show that the efficiency differs depending on ownership type; state-owned banks have the lowest efficiency levels in comparison with private banks and banks with foreign shareholders. Since the implementation of more stringent minimum capital rules, bank capitalization has also been an important driver of bank efficiency. The second chapter discusses how banks in Vietnam set their interest margins with a particular focus on bank ownership and interest rate regulation by the central bank. The results show that only private and state-owned banks transfer their operational costs to their clients. Bank capitalization which reflects bank risk aversion is a significant determinant for foreign and state owned banks only in presence of interest rate regulation; these banks tend to pass the high capital cost to customers. We also show that, in absence of interest rate control, foreign banks set higher margins when they take higher credit risk while in presence of interest rate regulation private banks cope with higher credit risk without being able to raise their margin accordingly. The last chapter investigates the impact of monetary policy and economic conditions on bank lending for different levels of bank capitalization. The results indicate that all types of monetary policy shocks have a negative effect on lending but that an increase in bank liquidity leads to a lower reduction in loan growth. Finally, banks with lower capitalization are less influenced by the business cycle.

Cette thèse étudie l’impact des stress tests bancaires sur les différents acteurs du marché. Le premier chapitre analyse comment les actionnaires et les détenteurs d’obligations bancaires réagissent à l’information transmise par les stress tests durant une période de crise. Il s’appuie sur le test de résistance conduit en 2011 par l’Autorité Bancaire Européenne (ABE) au moment de la crise de la dette souveraine. Une étude économétrique de nature événementielle révèle que les actionnaires réagissent davantage aux informations spécifiques à chaque banque alors que les détenteurs d’obligations ont en général des réactions de nature plus macroéconomique et sont plus influencés par l’impact global de la crise financière. Cependant, si on va plus loin dans l’analyse, en prenant en compte différentes catégories d’obligations, on montre que le comportement des détenteurs de dette subordonnée tend à rejoindre celui des actionnaires. Cette réaction spécifique des actionnaires et des créanciers qui en sont les plus proches démontre que ce sont les acteurs les plus à même d’exercer une discipline de marché en période de crise financière. Le second chapitre prend en compte les stress tests bancaires menés en Europe et aux Etats-Unis et analyse leur contenu informationnel à partir de leur impact sur le cours des actions bancaires. L’objectif est de déterminer si cet impact est fonction du degré d’opacité des banques. On montre tout d’abord que le marché réagit significativement à l’annonce des résultats des stress tests à la fois pour les banques testées et les banques non testées. On met ensuite en évidence une relation non linéaire entre le degré d’opacité des banques et l’impact des stress tests, indiquant que les tests ont un contenu informatif pour les banques moyennement opaques mais pas pour celles qui sont déjà très transparentes ou au contraire très opaques. Le troisième chapitre étudie l’impact de la publication des résultats des stress tests sur les divergences de notations à l’émission des obligations bancaires. On met l’accent sur les notations de Moody’s et de Standard & Poor’s concernant les obligations émises par les banques ayant participé aux différents stress tests européens et américains. L’analyse de l’évolution des divergences de rating sur les périodes avant et après chaque stress test montre que la publication des résultats peut globalement accroître ou réduire ces divergences selon le test considéré. Les agences de notation peuvent donc interpréter les résultats détaillés des stress tests différemment et leur impact n’est donc pas univoque, pouvant même provoquer plus de divergences. Cependant, dans des périodes fortement troublées, telles que celle de la crise de la dette souveraine européenne, où le marché est confronté à beaucoup d’incertitudes et à un fort besoin d’information, les résultats des stress tests conduisent à une plus grande convergence des agences sur leurs notations des obligations bancaires. / This dissertation studies the impact of banks’ stress tests on the different market players. The first chapter analyzes how stockholders and bondholders react to the information disclosed in the financial market during crisis periods. We consider the 2011 EBA stress test as it discloses detailed information about banks and it is conducted during the European sovereign debt crisis. We use an event study methodology and find that stockholders’ reaction is more specific to the information disclosed, while bondholders have generally macro reaction and are more sensible to the financial crisis. However, when we go further in our analysis by considering the different categories of bonds, we find that the behavior of subordinated bondholders tends to be closer to the behavior of stockholders. This specific reaction of stockholders during financial distress may make them more susceptible to impose market discipline when there is a financial crisis. In a second chapter, we consider European and US banks’ stress tests to analyze the information value of the stress tests using stock market prices. We investigate if the stock market reactions to the stress test results are different according tothe degree of opacity of banks. We find that the stock market reacts significantly to the disclosure of the stress tests’ results on the whole banks (tested and non-tested) meaning that the stress test transparency has an impact not only on tested banks but also on banks that do not participated to the stress test. By separating the sample of banks in less opaque and highly opaque banks, we find a non-linear relation between opacity and market reaction. The third chapter of this thesis investigates the impact of the disclosure of the stress tests results on the credit rating agencies’ split ratings on bonds issued by banks. To calculate the split rating variable, we consider bonds jointly rated by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s and issued by banks that participated to the European and US banks’ stress tests. The analysis of the split ratings on the period before and after each stress test results disclosure in Europe and in the US shows that the stress tests have mixed effect on credit rating agencies. Market participants could interpret the detailed data disclosed by the stress tests differently and these different interpretations may create more disagreements. However, we remark that in periods of distress i.e. during the European sovereign debt crisis, because of the high information need and the greater uncertainty, the stress tests results disclosure tends to decrease the split ratings.