One objective of the BCBS is to implement minimum supervisory capital standards in the banking sector. Basel I to Basel III attempted to maintain a minimum capital standard for credit risk, market risk and operational risk. Many loopholes were highlighted through years when political and economic disturbances occurred and caused volatility in the financial markets. This study analysed five major South African banks from 2002–2012 to determine the size of these disturbances on the regulatory capital levels. The empirical portion of this study comprised of statistical models to be applied to the quantitative observations of capital levels. These measurements served as the bases of comparison between the five banks. After the investigation it was evident that the capital levels of these five banks first decreased as the South African economy prevailed in a boom phase and banks were at ease. When the 2007–2009 financial crisis struck, the capital levels increased again in respect of the three risks. Global volatility surfaced as economic and political factors were introduced into the markets / MCom (Risk Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

One objective of the BCBS is to implement minimum supervisory capital standards in the banking sector. Basel I to Basel III attempted to maintain a minimum capital standard for credit risk, market risk and operational risk. Many loopholes were highlighted through years when political and economic disturbances occurred and caused volatility in the financial markets. This study analysed five major South African banks from 2002–2012 to determine the size of these disturbances on the regulatory capital levels. The empirical portion of this study comprised of statistical models to be applied to the quantitative observations of capital levels. These measurements served as the bases of comparison between the five banks. After the investigation it was evident that the capital levels of these five banks first decreased as the South African economy prevailed in a boom phase and banks were at ease. When the 2007–2009 financial crisis struck, the capital levels increased again in respect of the three risks. Global volatility surfaced as economic and political factors were introduced into the markets / MCom (Risk Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

The aim of the diploma thesis is to analyze the evolution of banking regulation from the turn of the 19th and 20th century with regard to the introduction of global standards of regulation and supervision. Great emphasis was placed on the status and functionality of the current regulation and also on its future shape as Basel III rules. In the theoretical part Basel I and Basel II projects are presented. The first of these is the concept from 1987 (Basel I) with the emphasis on greater stability and reliability of the international banking system. Basel I, however, represented a very simple and straightforward form of regulation, where the only monitored standard is bank's credit exposure. The amendment to Basel I and primarily Basel II, introduced a pillar regulation structure, which is still valid and provides national regulator a sufficient power to carry out its activities. The second, practical part of the thesis is devoted to current development and problems of banking regulation. This part introducing Basel III represents not only the key point of the gradual increase in the amount of regulatory capital until 2019, but also the introduction of uniform standards for measuring liquidity and strengthening the supervisory powers.

This study examines the trading activity of a large cross section of American bank holding companies upon various sub-events associated with the introduction of Basel III. An event study methodology was applied to various sub-composite portfolios, as determined by regulatory capitalization and leverage ratios. The results suggest that statically significant abnormal negative returns occurred on the announcement to negotiate due to heightened regulatory uncertainty, especially amongst the least capitalized and highest leveraged banks. However, this effect is complemented by statically significant positive returns upon the release of the initial guidelines. Reactions to subsequent events report to be less significant.

Nos últimos anos, o mercado segurador brasileiro tem apresentado forte expansão, a qual foi impulsionada pela estabilização econômica e o conseqüente aumento do consumo. No entanto, mediante um crescimento acelerado dos prêmios, eventuais desvios nas premissas adotadas na precificação podem expor as seguradoras a riscos pouco suportáveis no longo prazo. Este é um dos componentes do risco de subscrição, sendo o objeto do presente estudo. No âmbito regulatório, frente ao aumento das complexidades dos serviços financeiros e aos escândalos envolvendo grandes corporações, fez-se necessário o Novo Acordo da Basiléia, o qual introduziu metodologias de apuração da necessidade mínima de capital mais sensível a risco, beneficiando instituições melhor administradas na medida em que requer menor alocação de capital. Nessa mesma linha, no mercado segurador dos países membros da União Européia, segue o projeto Solvência II. Acompanhando a tendência mundial, no Brasil, foram promulgadas novas regras de solvência para o mercado segurador, sendo estabelecidas, num primeiro momento, regras de alocação de capital para cobertura do risco de subscrição, sendo os demais tipos de risco a serem tratados na seqüência. É importante esclarecer que, diferentemente do setor bancário, no mercado segurador brasileiro não é permitida a utilização do próprio modelo interno ou dos parâmetros deste para determinação do capital mínimo requerido regulatório, mas apenas a aplicação de fatores mais suavizados para tal fim. Assim, como este não observa o risco mensurado internamente, o capital regulatório passa a representar um potencial custo imposto às seguradoras, o qual pode impactar diretamente na rentabilidade das linhas de negócio. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo buscou investigar, sob a ótica e limitação de usuário externo das demonstrações contábeis, a existência de indícios que levam a supor que a nova regulamentação sobre o capital mínimo para cobertura do risco de subscrição penalizou as seguradoras de menor porte, tendo-se em vista o seu valor em risco para o nível de confiança de 99,5%. Para tanto, foi necessário: (a) apurar o capital mínimo regulatório, seja com ou sem modelo interno, (b) estimar o valor em risco de cada seguradora para o nível de confiança de 99,5% e (c) distinguir as seguradoras por porte, o qual foi determinado pela técnica de Análise de Conglomerados. O maior desafio foi determinar, para cada seguradora, o item (b), o qual consistiu na estimação das distribuições marginais das perdas por categoria de negócio e a agregação dessas pela aplicação da teoria de cópulas. Depois, calculou-se a razão entre (i) a somatória do grau de provisionamento com a alocação do capital regulatório (abordagens com e sem modelo interno) e (ii) o valor em risco ao nível de confiança de 99,5%. Em seguida, aplicou-se o teste de Mann-Whitney para comparar médias em função do porte. A partir da análise desenvolvida, observou-se que modelo regulatório se mostrou mais coerente quando aplicado às seguradoras médias e grandes, tendo-se em vista que apresentou menor dispersão no parâmetro calculado, cuja mediana estava em torno de 1. Ou seja, para essas, tal resultado sugere que o grau de provisionamento juntamente com o capital regulatório retrata, aproximadamente, o nível de confiança de 99,5%, em consonância com o Projeto Solvência II. A dispersão para as seguradoras pequenas é bem maior e a mediana está próximo a 1,5, o que indica que a abordagem regulatória requer em torno de 50% a mais de recursos que o nível de confiança de 99,5% exige. Esse resultado indica uma desvantagem competitiva se comparada às seguradoras de médio e grande porte. Portanto, os resultados dos testes sugerem que as novas regras de alocação de capital para o mercado segurador brasileiro penalizou as seguradoras de menor porte, impactando na rentabilidade, na precificação e na competitividade se comparada às médias e grandes, o que, por sua vez, tende a favorecer a concentração do setor. / In recent years, the Brazilian insurance market has shown strong growth, which was driven by economic stabilization and the consequent increase in consumption. However, on an environment accelerated growth of premiums, any deviations in the pricing assumptions may expose insurers to unbearable risks in the long term. This is one of the components of the underwriting risk which is the object of this study. In a regulatory side, increased complexities of the financial services and scandals involving large corporations resulted in the creation of the New Basel Accord, which introduced new methodologies to analyze the minimum capital required, considering the risk based capital approach, benefiting the better managed institutions as they require less capital allocation. In a similar vein, countries of the European Union follow the Solvency II project for their insurance market. Following the global trend, new solvency rules for the insurance market were approved in Brazil, being established in the first instance, rules of capital allocation to cover the underwriting risk. Other risk types will be addressed later by the government. It is important to clarify that, unlike the banking sector, the Brazilian insurance market is not allowed to use its own internal model or the parameters of this model to determine the minimum regulatory capital required, but only the application softened factors for this purpose. Thus, as it does not observe the risk internally measured, the regulatory capital becomes a potential cost imposed on the insurers, which can impact directly the profitability of the business lines. Therefore, from the point of view and limitation of external user of financial statements, the present study investigated the existence of signs that could lead to suppose that the new regulations on minimum capital to cover the underwriting risk have penalized the smaller insurance companies, when keeping in view their value at risk for the confidence level of 99,5%. To this end, it was necessary: (a) to determine the minimum regulatory capital, either approaches with or without internal model; (b) to estimate the value at risk of each insurer for the confidence level of 99,5%; and (c) to distinguish insurers by size, according to the cluster analysis technique. The biggest challenge was to determine, for each insurer, the item (b), which consisted in the estimation of marginal distributions of losses and aggregation of these by applying the theory of copulas. Then we calculated the ratio of (i) the sum of the degree of provisioning with the allocation of regulatory capital (approaches with and without internal model) and (ii) the value at risk at the level of confidence 99,5%. Next, we applied the Mann-Whitney Test to compare means of the insurers by size. From the developed analysis, it was observed that the regulatory model was more consistent on medium and large insures as they have shown a lower dispersion in the parameter of interest, presenting a median around 1. That is, for them, the result suggests that the level of provisioning along with the regulatory capital has approximately reflected the confidence level of 99,5%, which is in line with the Solvency II project. Small insurers have shown much higher dispersion and their median is close to 1,5. This indicates that the regulatory approach requires around 50% more resources than the confidence level of 99,5% requires. This represents a disadvantaged competition, if compared with large and medium sized companies. Therefore, the test results suggest that the new rules of capital allocation for the Brazilian insurance market has penalized the smaller insurers, impacting their profitability and competitive pricing when compared with the medium and large ones, which, in turn, tend to favor an industry concentration.

A topical issue in financial economics is the development of appropriate stochastic dynamic models for banking items and behavior. The issue here is to fulfil the need to generalize the more traditional discrete-time models of banking activity to a Levy process setting. In this thesis, under the assumption that the loan market is imperfectly competitive, we investigate the evolution of banking items such as bank assets (cash, bonds, shares, Treasuries, reserves, loans and intangible assets), liabilities (demand deposits) and bank capital (bank equity, subordinate debt and loan loss reserves). Here we consider the influence of macroeconomic factors and profitability as well as its indicators return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). As far as bank assets are concerned, we note that loan pricing models usually reflect the financial funding cost, risk premium to compensate for the risk of default by the borrower, a premium reflecting market power exercised by the bank and the sensitivity of the cost of capital raised to changes in loans extended. On the other hand, loan losses can be associated with an offsetting expense called the loan loss provision (LLP), which is charged against Nett profit. This offset will reduce reported income but has no impact on taxes, although when the assets are finally written off, a tax-deductible expense is created. An important factor influencing loan loss provisioning is regulation and supervision. Measures of capital adequacy are generally calculated using the book values of assets and equity. The provisioning of loans and their associated write-offs will cause a decline in these capital adequacy measures, and may precipitate increased regulation by bank authorities. Greater level of regulation generally entail additional costs for the bank. Currently, this regulation mainly takes the form of the Basel II Capital Accord that has been implemented on the worldwide basis since 2008. It is clear that bank profitability is a major indicator of financial crises for households, companies and financial institutions. An example of this from the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis (SMC) is the U.S. bank, Wachovia Corp., who reported a big loss as from the first quarter of 2007 and eventually was bought by the world's largest bank, Citigroup, on 29 September 2008. A further example from the SMC is that both the failure of the Lehman Brothers investment bank and the acquisition in September 2008 of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns by Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase, respectively, were preceded by a decrease in profitability and an increase in the price of loans and loan losses. The subprime mortgage crisis is characterized by contracted liquidity in the global credit markets and banking system. The level of liquidity in the banking sector affects the ability of banks to meet commitments as they become due without incurring substantial losses from liquidating less liquid assets. Liquidity, therefore, provides the defensive cash or near-cash resources to cover banks' liability. An undervaluation of real risk in the subprime market is cascading, rippling and ultimately severely adversely affecting the world economy. The downturn in the U.S. housing market, risky lending and borrowing practices, and excessive individual and corporate debt levels have caused multiple adverse effects tumbled as the US housing market slumped. Banks worldwide are hoarding cash and showing a growing reluctance to lend, driving rates that institutions charge to each other on loans to record highs. Also, global money markets are inoperative, forcing increased injections of cash from central banks. The crisis has passed through various stages, exposing pervasive weaknesses in the global financial system and regulatory framework. The stochastic dynamics of the aforementioned banking items assist in formulating a maximization problem that involves endogenous variables such as profit consumption, the value of the bank's investment in loans and provisions for loan losses as control variants. In particular, we demonstrate that the bank is able to maximize its expected utility of discounted profit consumption over a random time interval, [t,r], and terminal profit at time r. Here the term profit consumption refers to the consumption of the bank's profits by dividend payments on equity and interest and principal payments on subordinate debt. The associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation has a smooth solution when the optimal controls are computed by means of power, logarithmic and exponential utility functions. This enables us to make a direct comparison between the economic properties of the solutions for different choices of the utility function. In keeping with the main theme of this thesis, we simulate the financial indices ROE and ROA that are two measures of bank profitability. We further discuss optimization with power utility where we show the convergence of the Markov Chain Approximation Method (MCAM) and the impact of varying the model parameters in the form of loan loss severity, P, and loan loss frequency, <f>. We investigate the connections between the banking models and Basel II capital accord as well as the current subprime mortgage crises. As a way of conclusion, we provide remarks about the main issues discussed in the thesis and speculate about future research directions. The contents of this thesis is based on 3 peer-reviewed journal articles (see [105], [106] and [107]) and 1 peer-reviewed conference proceedings paper (see [104]). In addition, the paper [108] is currently being prepared for submission to an accredited journal. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Applied Mathematics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

A topical issue in financial economics is the development of appropriate stochastic dynamic models for banking items and behavior. The issue here is to fulfil the need to generalize the more traditional discrete-time models of banking activity to a Levy process setting. In this thesis, under the assumption that the loan market is imperfectly competitive, we investigate the evolution of banking items such as bank assets (cash, bonds, shares, Treasuries, reserves, loans and intangible assets), liabilities (demand deposits) and bank capital (bank equity, subordinate debt and loan loss reserves). Here we consider the influence of macroeconomic factors and profitability as well as its indicators return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). As far as bank assets are concerned, we note that loan pricing models usually reflect the financial funding cost, risk premium to compensate for the risk of default by the borrower, a premium reflecting market power exercised by the bank and the sensitivity of the cost of capital raised to changes in loans extended. On the other hand, loan losses can be associated with an offsetting expense called the loan loss provision (LLP), which is charged against Nett profit. This offset will reduce reported income but has no impact on taxes, although when the assets are finally written off, a tax-deductible expense is created. An important factor influencing loan loss provisioning is regulation and supervision. Measures of capital adequacy are generally calculated using the book values of assets and equity. The provisioning of loans and their associated write-offs will cause a decline in these capital adequacy measures, and may precipitate increased regulation by bank authorities. Greater level of regulation generally entail additional costs for the bank. Currently, this regulation mainly takes the form of the Basel II Capital Accord that has been implemented on the worldwide basis since 2008. It is clear that bank profitability is a major indicator of financial crises for households, companies and financial institutions. An example of this from the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis (SMC) is the U.S. bank, Wachovia Corp., who reported a big loss as from the first quarter of 2007 and eventually was bought by the world's largest bank, Citigroup, on 29 September 2008. A further example from the SMC is that both the failure of the Lehman Brothers investment bank and the acquisition in September 2008 of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns by Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase, respectively, were preceded by a decrease in profitability and an increase in the price of loans and loan losses. The subprime mortgage crisis is characterized by contracted liquidity in the global credit markets and banking system. The level of liquidity in the banking sector affects the ability of banks to meet commitments as they become due without incurring substantial losses from liquidating less liquid assets. Liquidity, therefore, provides the defensive cash or near-cash resources to cover banks' liability. An undervaluation of real risk in the subprime market is cascading, rippling and ultimately severely adversely affecting the world economy. The downturn in the U.S. housing market, risky lending and borrowing practices, and excessive individual and corporate debt levels have caused multiple adverse effects tumbled as the US housing market slumped. Banks worldwide are hoarding cash and showing a growing reluctance to lend, driving rates that institutions charge to each other on loans to record highs. Also, global money markets are inoperative, forcing increased injections of cash from central banks. The crisis has passed through various stages, exposing pervasive weaknesses in the global financial system and regulatory framework. The stochastic dynamics of the aforementioned banking items assist in formulating a maximization problem that involves endogenous variables such as profit consumption, the value of the bank's investment in loans and provisions for loan losses as control variants. In particular, we demonstrate that the bank is able to maximize its expected utility of discounted profit consumption over a random time interval, [t,r], and terminal profit at time r. Here the term profit consumption refers to the consumption of the bank's profits by dividend payments on equity and interest and principal payments on subordinate debt. The associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation has a smooth solution when the optimal controls are computed by means of power, logarithmic and exponential utility functions. This enables us to make a direct comparison between the economic properties of the solutions for different choices of the utility function. In keeping with the main theme of this thesis, we simulate the financial indices ROE and ROA that are two measures of bank profitability. We further discuss optimization with power utility where we show the convergence of the Markov Chain Approximation Method (MCAM) and the impact of varying the model parameters in the form of loan loss severity, P, and loan loss frequency, <f>. We investigate the connections between the banking models and Basel II capital accord as well as the current subprime mortgage crises. As a way of conclusion, we provide remarks about the main issues discussed in the thesis and speculate about future research directions. The contents of this thesis is based on 3 peer-reviewed journal articles (see [105], [106] and [107]) and 1 peer-reviewed conference proceedings paper (see [104]). In addition, the paper [108] is currently being prepared for submission to an accredited journal. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Applied Mathematics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

The way the banks carry out their operations is determined by the size of the bank and by the banking regulation. In order to perform these operations, banks need to decide whether the operations are going to be financed with equity, debt or a with a mix of both. The mix of equity and debt financing is known as capital structure, and the previous literature on banks’ capital structures suggests that the size of the bank may affect the relation between leverage and the factors of leverage: profitability, size, growth, risk, collateral, and the bank’s dividend payments. This study examines whether the relation between leverage and the factors of leverage is depended on the size of the bank. In addition to this, the banking regulation has changed since the last studied on banks’ capital structures have been conducted, which means that the relation between the new regulatory requirements and capital structure needs to be investigated. The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether leverage and the factors of leverage are dependent on the size of the listed banks headquartered in one of the member countries of European Union between the years 2009 and 2017. In order to study this, data of the banks is gathered from the Eikon database. Another purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of the relationship between the capital structure in banks and the regulatory requirements.   The theories on capital structure such as the, MM propositions, trade-off theory, and pecking-order theory are used to explain the variables of this study and the relation between the capital structure and regulatory capital. Previous literature of the banks’ capital structures and of the relation between size and the banks’ operations were studied in order to come up with the research questions. This study takes a deductive research approach and utilizes the quantitative research strategy. The data is analyzed by conducting regressions analysis for panel data in order to determine the relations studied.   Conclusions about whether the bank size determines the relation between leverage and its factors, and of the nature of the relation between capital structure and regulatory capital will be drawn. This study finds that the bank size determines the relation between leverage and the factors of leverage. Further, the relation between capital structure and regulatory capital is found to be strong. Under the new regulation, the capital structure theories do not apply at all for the small banks. These theories do not apply either when the banks, small or large, are close to meeting their regulatory capital requirements.  For larger banks meeting their capital requirements, the larger the banks get, the more of their leverage can be explained by the classic capital structure theories.

Nos últimos anos, o mercado segurador brasileiro tem apresentado forte expansão, a qual foi impulsionada pela estabilização econômica e o conseqüente aumento do consumo. No entanto, mediante um crescimento acelerado dos prêmios, eventuais desvios nas premissas adotadas na precificação podem expor as seguradoras a riscos pouco suportáveis no longo prazo. Este é um dos componentes do risco de subscrição, sendo o objeto do presente estudo. No âmbito regulatório, frente ao aumento das complexidades dos serviços financeiros e aos escândalos envolvendo grandes corporações, fez-se necessário o Novo Acordo da Basiléia, o qual introduziu metodologias de apuração da necessidade mínima de capital mais sensível a risco, beneficiando instituições melhor administradas na medida em que requer menor alocação de capital. Nessa mesma linha, no mercado segurador dos países membros da União Européia, segue o projeto Solvência II. Acompanhando a tendência mundial, no Brasil, foram promulgadas novas regras de solvência para o mercado segurador, sendo estabelecidas, num primeiro momento, regras de alocação de capital para cobertura do risco de subscrição, sendo os demais tipos de risco a serem tratados na seqüência. É importante esclarecer que, diferentemente do setor bancário, no mercado segurador brasileiro não é permitida a utilização do próprio modelo interno ou dos parâmetros deste para determinação do capital mínimo requerido regulatório, mas apenas a aplicação de fatores mais suavizados para tal fim. Assim, como este não observa o risco mensurado internamente, o capital regulatório passa a representar um potencial custo imposto às seguradoras, o qual pode impactar diretamente na rentabilidade das linhas de negócio. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo buscou investigar, sob a ótica e limitação de usuário externo das demonstrações contábeis, a existência de indícios que levam a supor que a nova regulamentação sobre o capital mínimo para cobertura do risco de subscrição penalizou as seguradoras de menor porte, tendo-se em vista o seu valor em risco para o nível de confiança de 99,5%. Para tanto, foi necessário: (a) apurar o capital mínimo regulatório, seja com ou sem modelo interno, (b) estimar o valor em risco de cada seguradora para o nível de confiança de 99,5% e (c) distinguir as seguradoras por porte, o qual foi determinado pela técnica de Análise de Conglomerados. O maior desafio foi determinar, para cada seguradora, o item (b), o qual consistiu na estimação das distribuições marginais das perdas por categoria de negócio e a agregação dessas pela aplicação da teoria de cópulas. Depois, calculou-se a razão entre (i) a somatória do grau de provisionamento com a alocação do capital regulatório (abordagens com e sem modelo interno) e (ii) o valor em risco ao nível de confiança de 99,5%. Em seguida, aplicou-se o teste de Mann-Whitney para comparar médias em função do porte. A partir da análise desenvolvida, observou-se que modelo regulatório se mostrou mais coerente quando aplicado às seguradoras médias e grandes, tendo-se em vista que apresentou menor dispersão no parâmetro calculado, cuja mediana estava em torno de 1. Ou seja, para essas, tal resultado sugere que o grau de provisionamento juntamente com o capital regulatório retrata, aproximadamente, o nível de confiança de 99,5%, em consonância com o Projeto Solvência II. A dispersão para as seguradoras pequenas é bem maior e a mediana está próximo a 1,5, o que indica que a abordagem regulatória requer em torno de 50% a mais de recursos que o nível de confiança de 99,5% exige. Esse resultado indica uma desvantagem competitiva se comparada às seguradoras de médio e grande porte. Portanto, os resultados dos testes sugerem que as novas regras de alocação de capital para o mercado segurador brasileiro penalizou as seguradoras de menor porte, impactando na rentabilidade, na precificação e na competitividade se comparada às médias e grandes, o que, por sua vez, tende a favorecer a concentração do setor. / In recent years, the Brazilian insurance market has shown strong growth, which was driven by economic stabilization and the consequent increase in consumption. However, on an environment accelerated growth of premiums, any deviations in the pricing assumptions may expose insurers to unbearable risks in the long term. This is one of the components of the underwriting risk which is the object of this study. In a regulatory side, increased complexities of the financial services and scandals involving large corporations resulted in the creation of the New Basel Accord, which introduced new methodologies to analyze the minimum capital required, considering the risk based capital approach, benefiting the better managed institutions as they require less capital allocation. In a similar vein, countries of the European Union follow the Solvency II project for their insurance market. Following the global trend, new solvency rules for the insurance market were approved in Brazil, being established in the first instance, rules of capital allocation to cover the underwriting risk. Other risk types will be addressed later by the government. It is important to clarify that, unlike the banking sector, the Brazilian insurance market is not allowed to use its own internal model or the parameters of this model to determine the minimum regulatory capital required, but only the application softened factors for this purpose. Thus, as it does not observe the risk internally measured, the regulatory capital becomes a potential cost imposed on the insurers, which can impact directly the profitability of the business lines. Therefore, from the point of view and limitation of external user of financial statements, the present study investigated the existence of signs that could lead to suppose that the new regulations on minimum capital to cover the underwriting risk have penalized the smaller insurance companies, when keeping in view their value at risk for the confidence level of 99,5%. To this end, it was necessary: (a) to determine the minimum regulatory capital, either approaches with or without internal model; (b) to estimate the value at risk of each insurer for the confidence level of 99,5%; and (c) to distinguish insurers by size, according to the cluster analysis technique. The biggest challenge was to determine, for each insurer, the item (b), which consisted in the estimation of marginal distributions of losses and aggregation of these by applying the theory of copulas. Then we calculated the ratio of (i) the sum of the degree of provisioning with the allocation of regulatory capital (approaches with and without internal model) and (ii) the value at risk at the level of confidence 99,5%. Next, we applied the Mann-Whitney Test to compare means of the insurers by size. From the developed analysis, it was observed that the regulatory model was more consistent on medium and large insures as they have shown a lower dispersion in the parameter of interest, presenting a median around 1. That is, for them, the result suggests that the level of provisioning along with the regulatory capital has approximately reflected the confidence level of 99,5%, which is in line with the Solvency II project. Small insurers have shown much higher dispersion and their median is close to 1,5. This indicates that the regulatory approach requires around 50% more resources than the confidence level of 99,5% requires. This represents a disadvantaged competition, if compared with large and medium sized companies. Therefore, the test results suggest that the new rules of capital allocation for the Brazilian insurance market has penalized the smaller insurers, impacting their profitability and competitive pricing when compared with the medium and large ones, which, in turn, tend to favor an industry concentration.

Mortgage loans are the major assets securitised by South African banks. Arguments from the literature indicate that the use of securitisation as an instrument for regulatory arbitrage weakened banks’ soundness and caused, at least partially, the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis. In this regard, financial institutions continually took advantage of the loopholes in the Basel regulation, principally that of Basel I. Undertaken from both the empirical and theoretical angles, this thesis investigated whether regulatory capital arbitrage under Basel II and III regulations, was a driver of mortgage loans securitisation by South African banks. Additionally, the effect of mortgage loans securitisation on the South African banks’ stability was analysed. Furthermore, the project built upon the case of mortgage loans securitisation to deepen the insight on banks’ behaviour towards risk, by considering a rare contractual relationship where banks are regarded as agents acting on behalf of regulators. The theoretical examination was carried out by means of perspectives from Agency and Institutional Theories. The South African banking system is essentially monopolistic with five banks holding more than 90% of total assets, out of which four, with 70% of the assets, consistently report outstanding volume of mortgage loans securitised. Based on the data collected from these four major banks, this research project is the first in many regards. It involves an emerging economy, considers the influence of both Basel II and III regulations, covers the period 2008 to 2015, and focuses on well-capitalised banks exclusively. Moreover, it extends regulatory capital arbitrage analysis to the evidence of loans expansion, includes CAMELS as bank stability proxy and brings in Agency Theory and Institutional Theory to explain banks’ behaviour with regards to risk in this particular context. In contrast, other studies were concentrated on Europe and America, mostly under Basel I, limited to one or two baseline models for regulatory capital arbitrage and often only the Z-score measure was used for bank stability. In three major steps, this study first employed the Ordinary Least Squares statistical methodology to test the capital arbitrage theory of securitisation and other of its features whereby it causes the decrease of capital with little or no reduction of risk. The estimation results indicated that securitisation of mortgage loans lessened South African banks’ regulatory capital, increased their overall risk level and moreover, suggested that the proceeds from securitisation were used to expand their loans portfolios. These outcomes tentatively imply that South African banks securitise mortgage loans for regulatory capital arbitrage. The second step explored the impact of securitisation of mortgage loans on South African banks’ stability. Two different measures of bank stability were involved: the CAMELS and the Z-score. CAMELS stands for C: capital (leverage ratio and not the regulatory capital); A: assets quality; M: management efficiency; E: earning; L: liquidity; and S: sensitivity to market risk (interest risk). The Two Stage Least Squares and the Ordinary Least Squares statistical methods were used respectively for the analysis of the relationship between the two bank stability indicators and the outstanding volume of mortgage securitised. The empirical results from CAMELS showed that mortgage loans securitised negatively affected the level of capital proxied by the leverage ratio, eroded assets quality and increased South African banks’ overall costs. However, they had a positive effect on South African banks’ profit, they seemed to be an additional source of liquidity and represented a useful tool to curtail market risk sensitivity, especially the interest risk as they increased net interest income. With regards to the analysis with the Z-score, the results indicated a negative impact of mortgage securitised on South African banks’ stability. The outcome remained unchanged when retained interests in the form of subordinated loans were included in the analysis, but retained interest had a positive influence on the Z-score. The last step of this study pertained to the theoretical analysis based on the concepts of Agency Theory and Institutional Theory. Acting as regulators’ agents in an agency relationship, the simple model of Agency Theory in its extended form explained that South African banks were first and foremost risk-taking players. They were more interested in the risk/reward trade-off in their decision-making attitude towards risk than pursuing the regulators’ goal of the stability of the banking system. In that sense, it was not a surprise that they engaged in regulatory capital arbitrage despite knowing that it was risky but could provide gains in liquidity and profit. In addition to goals conflict, Agency Theory indicated asymmetry of information between banks and regulators as the indirect origin of regulatory capital arbitrage, where the opacity of banks’ activities, such as securitisation, rendered regulations ineffective and thus easy to shirk. Furthermore, it was found that the essentials of the behaviour-oriented contract suggested by the theory as the optimal contract, were already included in the formulation of the latest Basel Accords. However, the researcher believes that one key element, which is the reward or compensation that should benefit the banks (the agent) when they abide by the terms of the contract, is missing. Regulators should therefore include incentives in the regulations and combine the behaviour and outcome-oriented contracts to optimize their relationship with banks even though, as explained by the theory, the outcome of bank stability will remain partially uncertain due to uncontrollable factors such as the economic conditions. The concept of legitimacy, from Institutional Theory, explicated that banks’ legitimacy came from their ability to comply with the regulations. From this stance, the results suggested that regulatory capital arbitrage seemed instead to undermine the legitimacy of South Africa banks well-capitalised position.