The financial sector stands for an important part of society’s fundamental infrastructure andnational economy. Previous financial crises indicate the importance of having a well-regulatedfinancial market. Former directives of regulating the insurance industry had insufficient solvencyregulations and were lacking in risk management. Therefore, the regulatory framework SolvencyII, the successor to Solvency I, has been established on the European market. The objective ofSolvency II is to ensure consumer protection by ensuring insurance companies properly reflectthe risks their businesses are vulnerable to.The regulatory framework Solvency II came into force in the turn of 2015/2016. However, it hasbeen on every insurers’ agenda for years and preparations have been done. It is therefore ofinterest to investigate how Swedish insurance companies have adjusted to Solvency II at an earlystage after the transition.This has been investigated by conducting interviews with mainly Chief Risk Officers and RiskManagers at Swedish insurance companies. As a complement, a questionnaire was distributed toasset and capital managers, having insurers as customers, regarding their perception of insurers’changes in investment behaviors.The findings of this study imply that insurance companies have had a compliance focus to adoptthe regulation rather than a business focus. No indications of adjustments to corporate businessstrategy has yet been noticed. However, some companies have developed a risk culture withinthe organizations. The extensive reporting and calculations of capital that Solvency II entails, haslead to implementations of new systems and processes for companies. It is further noticed thatSwedish insurance companies use the standard model for calculating the capital requirements.Solvency II has lead to increased understanding of the trade-off between capital, risk, and returnby holding a risk-adjusted capital. Also, an increased engagement of employees in the riskmanagement process has been noticed. The companies are aligned with the ORSA process, sinceit is one of the requirements, and are aware of the potential benefits the ORSA process cancontribute to. Lastly, this study indicates an improved risk awareness and culture within theinsurance companies by educating existing employees and employing new competentemployees.

In response to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, a handful of measures were taken to increase the resilience toward a similar disaster in the future. Global financial regulatory entities implemented several new directives with the intention to enhance global capital markets, leading to regulatory frameworks where financial participants (FPs) are regulated with own fund's requirements for market risks. This thesis intends to investigate two different methods presented in the framework Capital Requirements Regulation 3 (CRR 3), a framework stemming from the Basel Committee and implemented in EU legislation for determining the capital requirements for an FP. The first method, The Alternative Standardised Approach (A-SA), looks at categorical data, whereas the second method, The Alternative Internal Model Approach (A-IMA), uses the risk measure Expected Shortfall (ES) for determining the capital requirement and therefore requires the FP to estimate ES using a proprietary/internal model based on time series data. The proprietary model in this thesis uses a recurrent neural network (RNN) with several long short-term memory (LSTM) layers to predict the next day's ES using the previous 20 day's returns. The data consisted of categorical and time series data of a portfolio with the Nasdaq 100 companies as positions. This thesis concluds that A-IMA with an LSTM-network as the proprietary model, gives a lower capital requirement compared to A-SA but is less reliable in real-life applications due to its behaviour as a "black box" and is, thus, less compliant from a regulatory standpoint. The LSTM-model showed promising results for capturing the overall trend in the data, for example periods with high volatility, but underestimated the true ES. / Efter finanskrisen 2008 vidtogs flera effektiva åtgärder av världens största finansiella myndigheter som ett svar på det tidigare icke transparenta klimatet inom finanssektorn med intentionen att förstärka de globala kapitalmarknaderna. Detta innebar att nya samt strängare regelverk etablerades med direktiv så som hårdare kapitalkrav. Detta examensarbete är en empirisk undersökning samt jämförelse mellan två metoder i regelverket "Captail Requirements Regulation 3" (CRR 3) som kan användas för att beräkna en finansiell institutions kapitalkrav. Den första metoden, så kallad "Den alternativa schablonmetoden" (A-SA), använder kategorisk data för att beräkna kapitalkravet medan den andra metoden, "Den alternativa internmodellen" (A-IMA), kräver en att först beräkna riskmåttet "Expected Shortfall" (ES), med hjälp av en internmodell baserad på tidsseriedata, för att sedan kapitalkravet ska kunna beräknas. CRR 3 innehåller tydliga riktlinjer om hur en sådan internmodell ska utformas och i detta projekt testas en modell baserad på "återkommande neurala nätverk" (RNN) med den specifika arkitekturen "Long Short-Term Memory" (LSTM) för att estimera ES. De slutsatserna som kan dras är att A-IMA med en LSTM-modell, ger ett mindre kapitalkrav än A-SA. Däremot är A-IMA mindre tillförlitliga inom riskappliceringar på grund av risken att neurala nätverk kan bete sig som svarta lådor, vilket gör modellen mindre kompatibel från ett regelverksperspektiv. LSTM-modellen visade sig kunna upptäcka den generella trenden i portföljdatan (exempelvis perioder med hög volaitet) men gav konservativa prediktioner i jämförelse med testdatan.

The financial stability of the insurers is important to fulfil its role as a risk transfer mechanism and to protect the purchasers of their products. The European Union is introducing the Solvency II to modernise the current Solvency I regime and to harmonise the different insurance legislation of the members of the European Union. Solvency II introduces an architecture consisting of three pillars, with Pillar I setting the solvency capital requirements, Pillar II the governance and risk management requirements and Pillar III the reporting requirements. The South African Regulator initiated Solvency Assessment and Management for implementation in 2016 to align the South African prudential regulatory framework to meet the Solvency II requirements for third country equivalence. The problem that this study addressed is the possible effect that the introduction of Solvency Assessment and Management may have on the sustainability of short-term insurers in South Africa. The results of a empirical component of the study indicated that small and medium short-term insurers may be negatively impacted due to the costs incurred to implement and comply with the requirements of the new regulatory framework. The effect on the South African short-term industry can be that cover is concentrated among a few large short-term insurers. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

The financial stability of the insurers is important to fulfil its role as a risk transfer mechanism and to protect the purchasers of their products. The European Union is introducing the Solvency II to modernise the current Solvency I regime and to harmonise the different insurance legislation of the members of the European Union. Solvency II introduces an architecture consisting of three pillars, with Pillar I setting the solvency capital requirements, Pillar II the governance and risk management requirements and Pillar III the reporting requirements. The South African Regulator initiated Solvency Assessment and Management for implementation in 2016 to align the South African prudential regulatory framework to meet the Solvency II requirements for third country equivalence. The problem that this study addressed is the possible effect that the introduction of Solvency Assessment and Management may have on the sustainability of short-term insurers in South Africa. The results of a empirical component of the study indicated that small and medium short-term insurers may be negatively impacted due to the costs incurred to implement and comply with the requirements of the new regulatory framework. The effect on the South African short-term industry can be that cover is concentrated among a few large short-term insurers. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

Text in Afrikkans / Summaries in English and Afrikaans / The capital-adequacy problem is essentially concerned with the amount of capital that a bank should maintain in order to conduct its operations in a prudent manner. Because one of the primary functions of bank capital is to act as a risk cushion for the protection of a bank's depositors, a bank's capital funds are often regarded as comprising an insurance element. The capital-adequacy concept, therefore, may be seen as part of the overall banking risk, or prudential management. An attempt has been made to indicate that bank supervisors should use not only capital ratios when analysing a bank's capital position. Other factors, such as asset quality and other financial risks, should also be taken in consideration. Financial ratio analysis, however, provides bank supervisors with useful information. When combining ratio analysis with non-quantifiable factors, bank supervisors may indeed achieve their goal of determining capital adequacy. / Die kapitaaltoereikendheidsprobleem is hoofsaaklik gebaseer op die hoeveelheid kapitaal waaroor 'n bankinstelling moet beskik, ten einde die bankbesigheid op 'n verstandige wyse te bedryf. Een van die primere funksies van kapitaal is om te dien as verliesabsorberingsbuffer ter beskerming van 'n bankinstelling se deposante, en daarom word toereikende kapitaal dikwels geag om 'n soort versekeringselement te bevat. Die konsep van kapitaaltoereikendheid kan dus beskou word as deel van die totale risikobestuurskonsep. Daar is tydens die studie gepoog om aan te dui dat banktoesighouers nie net kapitaalverhoudings behoort te gebruik om 'n bankinstelling se kapitaalposisie te ontleed nie. Ander faktore, soos batekwaliteit en antler finansiele risiko's, moet ook in ag geneem word. Finansiele verhoudingsgetalontledings voorsien banktoesighouers van waardevolle inligting. Indien verhoudingsgetalle egter met nie-gekwantifiseerde inligting gekombineer sou word, kan banktoesighouers hul doel om kapitaaltoereikendheid te bepaal, bereik. / M.Com. (Business Management)

Diploma thesis "Optimization capital charges in VaR model utilizing dynamic risk management strategies" deals with banks opportunity to reduce Basel capital requirements via estimation volatility in VaR model for separate time periods differently. It analyses current crisis, its sources, process, but especially its influence of new worldwide accepted regulatory standards, which require nearly doubled regulatory capital. Regarding high impact to industry return on equity the thesis discusses the possibility of dynamic capital optimization based on alternating conservative and aggressive risk management strategies. Empirical part of thesis tests outcomes of volatility modeling based on historical quotes of six European indexes since 2003, which are classified by volatility levels and broken down into several time periods. We suggest approach which enables financial institutions to reduce the impact of new Basel rules on their ROE, while they meet all VaR model conditions defined by the regulator. However, there are also negative consequences of this lowering level of capital represented by increasing failure rates of models. Although banks are able by suggested approach to achieve capital reduction by 20 percent, they are in the same time forced to use one of a very aggressive strategies. Dynamic...

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T21:00:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 marciocecilioturma2004.pdf.jpg: 19602 bytes, checksum: 0772484d1cb46349dfbfb25620b5cdae (MD5) marciocecilioturma2004.pdf: 859203 bytes, checksum: 346a3e7d5751118ff894a182d7512b56 (MD5) marciocecilioturma2004.pdf.txt: 86793 bytes, checksum: e0c91b2715fc569bc6ec29bfce078e69 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-01-23T00:00:00Z / Há forte evidência que os retornos das séries financeiras apresentam caudas mais pesadas que as da distribuição normal, principalmente em mercados emergentes. No entanto, muitos modelos de risco utilizados pelas instituições financeiras baseiam-se em normalidade condicional ou não condicional, reduzindo a acurácia das estimativas. Os recentes avanços na Teoria de Valores Extremos permitem sua aplicação na modelagem de risco, como por exemplo, na estimação do Valor em Risco e do requerimento de capital. Este trabalho verifica a adequação de um procedimento proposto por McNeil e Frey [1999] para estimação do Valor em Risco e conseqüente requerimento de capital às principais séries financeiras de retornos do Brasil. Tal procedimento semi-paramétrico combina um modelo GARCH ajustado por pseudo máxima verossimilhança para estimação da volatilidade corrente com a Teoria de Valores Extremos para estimação das caudas da distribuição das inovações do modelo GARCH. O procedimento foi comparado através de backtestings com outros métodos mais comuns de estimação de VaR que desconsideram caudas pesadas das inovações ou a natureza estocástica da volatilidade. Concluiu-se que o procedimento proposto por McNeil e Frey [1999] mostrou melhores resultados, principalmente para eventos relacionados a movimentos negativos nos mercados . Futuros trabalhos consistirão no estudo de uma abordagem multivariada de grandes dimensões para estimação de VaR e requerimento de capital para carteiras de investimentos. / There is a strong evidence that financial return series are heavy-tailed, mostly in emerging markets. However, most of the risk models used by financial institutions are based in conditional or non-conditional normality, which reduces the accuracy of the estimates. The recent advances in Extreme Value Theory permit its application to risk measuring, such as Value at Risk and capital adequacy estimates. This work verifies the adequacy of a procedure proposed by McNeil and Frey [1999] to VaR and consequent capital requirement estimates for the main financial return series in Brazil. This semi parametric procedure combines a pseudo-maximumlikelihood fitting GARCH model to estimate the current volatility and the Extreme Value Theory (EVT) to estimate the tails of the innovations distribution of the GARCH model. Using backtestings the procedure was compared to other common methods of VaR estimation that disregard heavy tails of the innovations or the stochastic nature of the volatility. The procedure proposed by McNeil and Frey [1999] showed better results, mostly for negative events in the financial market2 . Further works will consist of studying a high dimensional multivariate approach to estimate VaR and capital requirements for portfolios of investment instruments.

Text in Afrikkans / Summaries in English and Afrikaans / The capital-adequacy problem is essentially concerned with the amount of capital that a bank should maintain in order to conduct its operations in a prudent manner. Because one of the primary functions of bank capital is to act as a risk cushion for the protection of a bank's depositors, a bank's capital funds are often regarded as comprising an insurance element. The capital-adequacy concept, therefore, may be seen as part of the overall banking risk, or prudential management. An attempt has been made to indicate that bank supervisors should use not only capital ratios when analysing a bank's capital position. Other factors, such as asset quality and other financial risks, should also be taken in consideration. Financial ratio analysis, however, provides bank supervisors with useful information. When combining ratio analysis with non-quantifiable factors, bank supervisors may indeed achieve their goal of determining capital adequacy. / Die kapitaaltoereikendheidsprobleem is hoofsaaklik gebaseer op die hoeveelheid kapitaal waaroor 'n bankinstelling moet beskik, ten einde die bankbesigheid op 'n verstandige wyse te bedryf. Een van die primere funksies van kapitaal is om te dien as verliesabsorberingsbuffer ter beskerming van 'n bankinstelling se deposante, en daarom word toereikende kapitaal dikwels geag om 'n soort versekeringselement te bevat. Die konsep van kapitaaltoereikendheid kan dus beskou word as deel van die totale risikobestuurskonsep. Daar is tydens die studie gepoog om aan te dui dat banktoesighouers nie net kapitaalverhoudings behoort te gebruik om 'n bankinstelling se kapitaalposisie te ontleed nie. Ander faktore, soos batekwaliteit en antler finansiele risiko's, moet ook in ag geneem word. Finansiele verhoudingsgetalontledings voorsien banktoesighouers van waardevolle inligting. Indien verhoudingsgetalle egter met nie-gekwantifiseerde inligting gekombineer sou word, kan banktoesighouers hul doel om kapitaaltoereikendheid te bepaal, bereik. / M.Com. (Business Management)

The theoretical and practical importance of working capital management (Sharma & Kumar, 2011) and its strong link with the firm’s financial stability (Wang et al., 2020, p. 2; Kamel 2015, p. 35) make it one of the most important functional areas of corporate finance. Although literature and the corporate world recognize corporate sustainability mainly through corporate social responsibility (CSR), ESG emerged in the recent past and quickly made its strong footfall as an indicator of corporate sustainability. Literature is evident that studies have mainly focused on studying both working capital management (WCM) and corporate sustainability in relation to firm financial performance (FFP), while scant research has assessed the relationship between WCM and corporate sustainability (Barros et al., 2022, p. 1). The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate sustainability and WCM in the Swedish market to fill this gap in the literature and contribute to the existing body of knowledge on the subject matter through its findings, especially with reference to the use of ESG rating scores.  The relationship was examined through the quantitative approach. Sample data was comprised of 418 firm-year observations retrieved from Refinitiv Eikon on 38 firms listed on Nasdaq Stockholm between 2010-2020. ESG rating scores were used to measure corporate sustainability, while two proxy measures; cash conversion cycle (CCC) and working capital requirements (WCR) were for WCM. Stata software was used to find the results of the study by running the pertinent regression models using robust standard errors. Various statistical tests were performed to satisfy all the OLS classical assumptions. The empirical results of our study revealed mixed findings. The findings connected to CCC indicated no statistically significant relationship between ESG scores and CCC which allowed us to conclude that sustainable firms in Sweden do not operate with a shorter CCC (or cash cycle). The findings connected to WCR indicated a significant negative relationship of WCR with the environmental and social score, however no relationship with ESG and governance scores. These results allowed us to conclude that sustainable firms in Sweden are able to operate with WCR (or cash requirements), however, these effects entirely come from the environmental and social pillars, which indirectly implies more sustainable firms can operate with lower levels of debt than their counterparts. Since we found no significant effect from the ESG scores for both CCC and WCR, our findings were partially in line with the shareholder theory, the stakeholders’ theory, and the legitimacy theory we used as theoretical references in our study. The overall findings of our study allow us to suggest sustainable firms in Sweden reconsider their working capital policy decisions to achieve working capital efficiency (a shorter cash cycle) while staying aligned with their sustainability goals.

Cette thèse est composée de trois articles d’économie bancaire empirique. Le premier article traite de l’impact des conditions d’octroi de crédit sur l’accession à la propriété et les prix immobilier. Il propose une stratégie d’identification d’effets de causalité utilisant la politique du Prêt à Taux Zéro. Il conclut qu’un relâchement des conditions d’octroi de crédit permet à des ménages au revenu relativement plus faible de devenir propriétaire mais augmente significativement les prix immobilier. Le second article traite de l’effet des exigences en capital sur l’octroi de crédit des banques aux sociétés non financières. Il isole la composante des exigences en capital exogène aux conditions macroéconomiques grâce au système de notation du superviseur bancaire français. Il montre que les mesures de la qualité de la gouvernance et de la stratégie des établissements sont des contributeurs importants aux exigences en capital. En traçant l’effet de celles-ci sur les ratios de capital des établissements puis sur l’octroi de crédit, il montre qu’augmenter les exigences en capital réduit l’offre de crédit. Le troisième article analyse la prise en compte du risque de crédit sur le marché interbancaire européen entre 2011 et 2015 et comment celle-ci est modifiée par les ajustements de la politique monétaire sur la période. Il se concentre sur le risque inhérent à la détention d’actifs situés dans les pays périphériques de la zone euro. Il montre que l’accès au marché et les taux d’intérêt payés par les emprunteurs réagissent à cette détention. La nature et l’importance de cette réaction dépendent des interventions de politique monétaire. / This thesis is made up of three empirical essays in banking economics. The first paper analyses how credit supply conditions impact access to homeownership and real estate prices.We propose an identification strategy of causal effects based on the French Interest-Free Loan policy. We find loosenning credit conditions allows households with a relatively lower income to access homeownership but significantly increases real estate prices. The second paper looks for the effect of capital requirements on credit supply to non-financial companies.We identify movements in capital requirements exogenous to the macroeconomic environment thanks to the French banking supervisor rating system. We show governance and strategy quality measures significantly contribute to capital requirements setting. Followingtheir effects onto banks capital ratios and credit supply, we show raising capital requirementsreduces credit. The third article analyses credit risk management on the European interbankmarket between 2011 and 2015 and how it is modified by monetary policy adjustments overthe period. We focus on credit risk associated with holdings of assets located in peripheral Europe countries. We show market access and interest rates served to borrowers react to their holdings of such assets. The direction and size of this reaction depends on monetary policy interventions.