Challenges in Implementing Macroprudential Policy to Realise Stability in the UK Banking Sector Following COVID-19 Shock
A research paper submitted to the Repository at Dickson Poon Law School, King’s College, London
By: Xaypaseuth Phomsoupha, PhD
Solicitor-at-Law
Researcher & Author
1. Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit global population health over the most recent years, during which the financial stability of many economies, whether large or small, has been shaken to a great extent. Many financial institutions suggest that the occurrence of COVID-19 risk poses threats to their financial health.[1] The pandemic has been observed to have transferred its contagion from country to country in the same way as systemic risk channels financial stress from one institution to another within the financial sector.[2] Worldwide financial health was adversely affected by COVID-19 to a great extent.
This paper presents UK authorities’ challenges in implementing macroprudential policy as tools to alleviate a COVID-19 risk affecting the banking sector. As the researcher registered at three consecutive universities in the UK concurrent with a law practice in Laos, the author would like to present his academic ambition to the Lao audience. This article may help readers, particularly those from the Lao regulatory body, understand how the banks in developed economies, like the UK, sustain financial stability following COVID-19, which may be translated into the Lao context.
2. The Notion of Risks and Macroprudential Policy
2.1. COVID-19 Risk Analogous to Financial Risks
Theoretically, risk management is at the cost of participation in any business, including banking transactions. One may argue that risks never disappear but are fairly allocated amongst trade and investment participants, including the host state agencies.[3] The COVID-19 pandemic is a disease that adversely affects people’s health in their daily life. Those working for bank institutions are affected, with no exception, by the pandemic outbreak.[4] The COVID-19 risk reassembles systemic risk when the pandemic occurs and channels contagion from an individual to others and from one institution to other parts of the financial system. A reasonable banker usually takes a forward-looking approach to counter risks of all kinds, including but not limited to systemic risk, market risk, counterparty credit risk, collateral risk, operation risk, liquidity risk, insolvency risk, personnel risk, and social risk.[5] The financial risk of relevant species entails the likelihood of bringing adverse repercussions in transactions involving securitisation, banking, financing insurance, payment, and other trading undertakings.[6] Kohn defines systemic risk as likely failures “contributed to the buildup of risks in the financial market and institutions that led to the financial crisis.”[7] Bank and non-bank institutions trading in borrowing, lending, providing securities, effecting insurance, and any other financial products may be exposed to systemic risk to financial irregularity due to the pandemic outbreak disturbing people working in the bank institutions.[8] Many scholars have appreciated the interconnectedness of the afore-specified cases for systemic risk in the entire financial system.[9] Authorities of many governments have related macroprudential tools to managing the COVID-19 shock in anticipation of eliminating risks exposed to the bank institutions.
2.2. Macroprudential Tools
The authorities in charge of supervision and enforcement of the regulations have utilised a forward-looking approach to managing risks and maintaining the financial steadiness of the entire financial system, including bank institutions.[10] The forward-looking approach to supervision for bank institutions is also called a macroprudential framework for the whole financial system. However, its counterpart, micro-prudential regulation, intends to contain the riskiness of individual organisations.[11] Under the micro-prudential belief, the system grows dynamically when individual institutions function stably. Macroprudential tools serve as the dicta utilised by the authoritative bodies to achieve continuous financial stability over the time horizon within the entire institutional boundary of several institutions.[12] The whole institutional arrangement covers several jurisdictions as trade and investment expand. Monetary policies, fiscal policy, and legislation govern participants in the foregoing financial sector.[13] The Basel III rules set out essential elements for the supervisory authorities to administer systemic risk in the financial industry before recast by the post ante 2007-2009 crisis events.[14] The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented but tends to pose risks similar to systemic risks and other financial system risks; however, the efficacy of all macroprudential tools to cure economic ailments is challenging.
3. Challenges in Implementing Macroprudential Tools
3.1. Identification of Risk Consequences
The COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedentedly spotted in many countries recently. Amour et al. postulates that specifying a responsive regulation designed to manage risks, which may occur or not occur in the future, is challenging.[15] The preceding statement is the corollary of difficulty in judging the magnitude and the extent to which the COVID-19 outbreak influences financial stability. Some scholars suggest that regulators need to assess further whether the regulations necessitate a general framework while leaving detailed scope, provisions, and timing to accomplish to be elaborated on when circumstances arrive.[16] The authorities face challenges in; (i) designing a framework, (ii) judging the effect, or (iii) applying a competent tool to contain the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.
The supervisory authorities of the OECD countries acknowledge that the COVID-19 crisis threatens human actors and institutional players like banks, where human actors work continuously.[17] Responsible authorities have a hard time predicting what species of risk triggering, for instance, customer non-repayment, short liquidity, bank run, insolvency, credit losses, and collaterals devaluation, will occur to the entire bank institutions following the pandemic incident.[18] As such, the Basel Committee agreed to alter a market risk regulation by revising minimum capital requirements effective in January 2023.[19] The authorities face challenges in neutralising risks throughout the banking sector resulting from the COVID-19 crisis.
In respect of financial market infrastructures, clearing, payment, settlement, and recording of monetary and financial transactions are interconnected. Hence, supervisory authorities must consider interconnectedness in controlling the COVID outbreak, which may have crippled the entire blockchain.[20] The social panics on the disease demotivates financial professionals, who are, in turn, deterred from performing full responsibilities as so assigned by their management.[21] The challenges in selecting appropriate macroprudential tools for protecting the Financial Market Infrastructure (“FMI”) from bank-related risk remain unaddressed.
3.2. Basel III Tools
While the predecessor Basel II is blamed for being procyclical, Basel III appears to be counter-cyclical measures to prevent systemic risk.[22] The Basel III measures were built upon micro-prudential requirements, including capital adequacy, enhancing risk capture, constraining bank leverage, robust liquidity, and limiting procyclicality to ensure financial stability throughout the financial institutions.[23] The particular focus was on risk-weighted assets concerning cash, securities, and loans made to individual and institutional clients, whether private or governmental.[24] In designing the Basel III tools, the Basel Committee believes that the tools can help participants reduce systemic risk and maintain stability in the financial system.[25] The Basel countries’ members established the Basel III framework before COVID-19 channelled contagion.
Applying the Basel III macroprudential tools to tackle the financial shock resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak may be questionable for authorities because incidents differ from place to place.[26] Thus, the efficacy of the macroprudential tool for mitigating systemic risk resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak needs to be tested empirically.[27] OECD stated, “The COVID-19 crisis raises challenges to the capital of certain banks, even though they entered the crisis with higher capital ratios than before the GFC…”.[28] Despite an unsettling connection between the Basel III macroprudential tools and the COVID-19 pandemic incident, the financial stability of the entire financial system tends to be adversely impacted following the pandemic outbreak.
3.3. Cross-sectional Measures
Theoretically, cross-sectional regulations cover bank and non-bank institutions in mitigating systemic risk. The preceding claim emanates from the fact that non-bank financial institutions equally fabricate systemic risk as the bank premises do.[29] Likewise, the interplay between counterparties and contracts applied to financial markets is a conduit channelling the risk contagion from one place to another. Participants trading through a central clearing counterparties arrangement through novation, open offers, or various legal instruments are believed to have their risks reduced.[30] Another measure is to segregate retail banking from investment banking activities. However, one may challenge that the segregation exacerbates instead of mitigating the systemic risk in the financial system.[31] Thus, the CCP intertwines between sellers and buyers of the markets.
An example is the UK-specific financial system that can be exposed to systemic risk. The Independent Evaluation Office (“IEO”) was established to supervise the FMI in the UK.[32] Although acting independently, the IEO functions with the Bank of England in assessing potential risks for the entire financial sector. The Bank of England welcomes IEO’s recommendations for the FMI, including clarification of objectives and responsibilities, leveraging broader expertise employed for the Bank, and strengthening the governance of the entire banking sector.[33] The independent recommendations contain a forward-looking approach to helping the Bank of England avoid unprecedented risks such as the COVID shock.
Challenges of macroprudential authorities in applying the cross-sectional frameworks in alleviating the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial sector remain noticeable. Many bank institution staff can work from home using online facilities to limit physical contact and contain virus contagion.[34] Using electronic money in daily retail transactions is another way to stop transmitting the disease; however, another cyber-attack risk has recurred.[35] Thus, the risk is transformed from one form to another.
3.4. Time-varying Measures
The time-varying measures are concerned with restrictions imposed by the central bank not to allow commercial banks and non-bank institutions to lend monies to specific assets. Over the past economic crisis cycle, investment in real estate was perceived as releasing loans to extensive subprime debtors and thereby made the home loan sector suffer to a great extent.[36] The time-varying regulation introduced in Basel III entails a number of measures to curb the credit-fueled real estate boom. More specifically, the loan-to-value ratio (“LTV”) is expressed in an equation calculating a house’s value, for instance, used security and the number of monies loaned on it.[37] In addition, debt-service-to-income (“DTI”) or loan-to-income (“LTI”) are the preconditions set for lenders before releasing loans to the borrowers.[38] The measures were designed to eliminate marginal borrowers and risky activities from lending during the stress period before the COVID-19 outbreak.
Several supervisory authorities, including those in the UK, tested the above-mentioned macroprudential tools. The tests demonstrate that the measures have deterred lenders on the supply side from lending but not the borrower from borrowing.[39] Furthermore, borrowers who fail to secure loans from bank institutions tend to shift their lending to non-bank institutions. Overall, the UK financial sector faced a credit crisis to a great extent, although time-varying measures were implemented.[40] To cope with the COVID-19 incident, the Basel Committee countenanced a one-year extension of the deadline of setting the margin conditions for non-centrally cleared derivatives to be newly accomplished on 1 September 2022 instead of 1 September 2021.[41] It is challenging for supervisory authorities of many jurisdictions globally to impose the tool above to normalise stability in bank institutions so long as the pandemic outbreak prevalently affects the banking operation.
3.5. The Interplay between Monetary Measure and Fiscal Policy
A financial institution has faced systemic risk in the financial perimeter. Scholars have introduced various monetary means to inhibit or reduce systemic risk.[42] Control over liquidity and regulating interest rates for borrowing and lending are essential for bank institutions to counteract financial shock. The fiscal measure, a government policy for stabilising macroeconomics, plays a crucial role in intertwining with the monetary measures to alleviate or contain financial risk and restore stability in the macroeconomic system.[43] For instance, tax on home mortgages can build up a bubble when such taxes generously incentivise investment in real estate, whereas the same kind of tax imposed on borrowers and financial institutions can manage the bubble burst effectively.[44] Macroprudential authorities collaborate with other government agencies; for instance, the Ministry of Finance, in charge of fiscal policy on implementing the macroprudential measures, should yield satisfactory outcomes.
With respect to mitigating systemic risk resulting from the COVID-19 shock, many governments should apply the fiscal policy in providing, for instance, a waiver or even derogation of tax payments, special aids, and a rebate of public goods charges for low-income earners.
4. Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has channelled its person-to-person contagion of the sick virus, which spreads throughout organisations in the same way as systemic risk has adversely affected financial stability in the financial system.[45] Sick people catching the virus are stigmatised, marginal, or even isolated and are forced to be out of work for several days or even months. The contagion may be endogenous or exogenous, but all impair bank functions.[46] The COVID-19 shock emulates financial instability resulting from systemic risk to some extent.
The authorities supervising the implementation of the pertinent regulations apply macroprudential measures to contain financial disasters resulting from the pandemic outbreak. International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) has advised central banks of its country members to establish a clear, practical risk management framework in combating the risks.[47] The incident is not part of the cyclical events or after-shock waves; it is unprecedented and unforeseeable. The COVID-19 shock transcends the healthcare service sector making the supervisory authorities take a broader forward-looking approach to secure financial stability.
The macroprudential authorities in many governments have faced challenges in identifying kinds of risk and their respective effect posed by the pandemic before designing the right macroprudential approach.[48] Failing to forecast a correct risk usually leads to creating a wrong combating direction. The cross-sectional measures mitigate conventional systemic risk contagious amongst bank and non-bank institutions. However, the COVID-19 shock is believed to generate retardation of other sectors in the financial perimeter.[49] Widespread and extended workforce absenteeism due to the pandemic panics can make institutions’ owners short of revenues and inadvertently make their loans unperformed.[50] The time-varying measures may be apt for preventing systemic risk with respect to security and loans secured thereupon; nonetheless, the measures applied in order to avoid the COVID-19 shock are questionable as the pandemic has crippled the business of borrowers, securities providers, and lenders.[51] Under present circumstances, monetary and fiscal policies must consistently alleviate risks and attain financial stability and economic growth thereafter.
With the macroprudential tools, the post-Brexit UK financial sector has stabilised satisfactorily in the post-COVID-19 era. The Lao economic sector will undoubtedly benefit from international experience making the Lao state an emerging investment venue in the years to come if a holistic approach involving finance, insurance, banking, and non-bank financing amasses workable macroprudential strategies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES
Secondary Sources
Books
Amour J, Awrey D, Davies P, Enriques L, Gordon N J, Mayer C, and Payne J, Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016)
Cranston R, Avgouleas E, Zwieten v K, Hare C, and Sante v T, The Principle of Banking Law”(3rd edition Oxford University Press 2017)
Hudson A, The Law of Finance (2013)
Keller A, Legal Foundation of Macroprudential Policy: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Intersentia 2020)
Articles
Donald Kohn, Institutions for Macroprudential Regulation: the UK and the US, Bank of England (2014)
Jakob de Haan, Zhenghao Jin, and Chen Zhou, Micro-prudential regulation and banks’ systemic risk (DNB Working Paper No. 656, October 2019)
Steven L Schwarcz, “Systemic Risk” [2008] The Georgetown Law Journal vol 97-193
Publications
Bank of England, The Bank of England’s Supervision of Financial Market Infrastructures – Annual Report (for the period 23 February 2017 – 20 February 2018) (2018)
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Finalizing Basel III, in Brief, Ban for International Settlements (2017)
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Eighteenth Progress Report on Adoption of the Basel Regulatory Framework (Bank for International Settlements July 2020)
Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, Principles of Financial Market Infrastructure (OICV-IOSCO, Bank for International Settlement 2012) www.iosco.org
IMF/Monetary and Capital Markets, Central Bank Operational Risk Considerations for COVID-19 (Special Series on COVID-19 2021)
OECD, The COVID-19 crisis and banking system resilience: Simulation of losses on non-performing loans and policy implication (OECD Paris 2021)
[1] OECD, The COVID-19 crisis and banking system resilience: Simulation of losses on non-performing loans and policy implication (OECD Paris 2021) 9
[2] Steven L Schwarcz, “Systemic Risk” [2008] The Georgetown Law Journal vol 97-193, 198-199
[3] Ibid, 199
[4] OECD, The COVID-19 crisis and banking system resilience: Simulation of losses on non-performing loans and policy implication (OECD Paris 2021) 11tem
[5] Alistair Hudson, The Law of Finance (2013) 24-39
[6] John Amour, Dan Awrey, Paul Davies, Luga Enriques, Jeffrey N Gordon, Colin Mayer, and Jenifer Payne, Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016) 411-412
[7] Donald Kohn, Institutions for Macroprudential Regulation: the UK and the US, Bank of England (2014) 2
[8] IMF/Monetary and Capital Markets, Central Bank Operational Risk Considerations for COVID-19 (Special Series on COVID-19 2021) 5-7
[9] Alistair Hudson, The Law of Finance (2013) 24-39
[10] Donald Kohn, Institutions for Macroprudential Regulation: the UK and the US, Bank of England (2014) 2-5
[11] Jakob de Haan, Zhenghao Jin, and Chen Zhou, Micro-prudential regulation and banks’ systemic risk (DNB Working Paper No. 656, October 2019) 2-4, 30
[12] Ross Cranston, Emilios Avgouleas, Kristin van Zwieten, Christopher Hare, and Theodor van Sante, The Principle of Banking Law” (3rd edition Oxford University Press 2017) 8-12
[13] Ibid, 308-331
[14] Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Finalizing Basel III in Brief, Ban for International Settlements (2017) 2
[15] John Amour, Dan Awrey, Paul Davies, Luga Enriques, Jeffrey N Gordon, Colin Mayer, and Jenifer Payne Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016) 86-91
[16] Ibid, 88-91
[17] OECD, The COVID-19 crisis and banking system resilience: Simulation of losses on non-performing loans and policy implication (OECD Paris 2021) 11-13 3
[18] Ibid, 13
[19] Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Eighteenth Progress Report on Adoption of the Basel Regulatory Framework (Bank for International Settlements July 2020) 4
[20] Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, Principles of Financial Market Infrastructure (OICV-IOSCO, Bank for International Settlement 2012) 5-6, www.iosco.org
[21] IMF/Monetary and Capital Markets, Central Bank Operational Risk Considerations for COVID-19 (Special Series on COVID-19 2021) 2-4
[22] John Amour, Dan Awrey, Paul Davies, Luga Enriques, Jeffrey N Gordon, Colin Mayer, and Jenifer Payne, Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016) 416-417
[23] Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Finalizing Basel III in Brief, Ban for International Settlements (2017) 2
[24] Ibid, 3
[25] John Amour, Dan Awrey, Paul Davies, Luga Enriques, Jeffrey N Gordon, Colin Mayer, and Jenifer Payne, Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016) 416
[26] IMF/Monetary and Capital Markets, Central Bank Operational Risk Considerations for COVID-19 (Special Series on COVID-19 2021) 2 2
[27] OECD, The COVID-19 crisis and banking system resilience: Simulation of losses on non-performing loans and policy implication (OECD Paris 2021) 11-15
[28] Ibid, 11
[29] John Amour, Dan Awrey, Paul Davies, Luga Enriques, Jeffrey N Gordon, Colin Mayer, and Jenifer Payne, Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016) 418
[30] Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, Principles of Financial Market Infrastructure (OICV-IOSCO, Bank for International Settlement 2012) 9, www.iosco.org
[31] John Amour, Dan Awrey, Paul Davies, Luga Enriques, Jeffrey N Gordon, Colin Mayer, and Jenifer Payne, Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016) 419
[32] Bank of England, The Bank of England’s Supervision of Financial Market Infrastructures – Annual Report (for the period 23 February 2017 – 20 February 2018) (2018) 7-9
[33] Ibid, 11
[34] OECD, The COVID-19 crisis and banking system resilience: Simulation of losses on non-performing loans and policy implication (OECD Paris 2021) 12 2
[35] Ibid, 12-13
[36] John Amour, Dan Awrey, Paul Davies, Luga Enriques, Jeffrey N Gordon, Colin Mayer, and Jenifer Payne, Principle of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2016) 419
[37] Ibid, 421
[38] Ibid, 421
[39] Ibid, 420-423
[40] Ibid, 420.
[41] Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Eighteenth Progress Report on Adoption of the Basel Regulatory Framework (Bank for International Settlements July 2020) 3
[42] Ross Cranston, Emilios Avgouleas, Kristin van Zwieten, Christopher Hare, and Theodor van Sante, The Principle of Banking Law” (3rd edition Oxford University Press 2017) 31-41
[43] Anat Keller, Legal Foundation of Macroprudential Policy: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Intersentia 2020) 236
[44] Ibid, 236
[45] IMF/Monetary and Capital Markets, Central Bank Operational Risk Considerations for COVID-19 (Special Series on COVID-19, 2021) 2
[46] Ibid, 2-4
[47] Alistair Hudson, The Law of Finance (2013) 29-33
[48] OECD, The COVID-19 crisis and banking system resilience: Simulation of losses on non-performing loans and policy implication (OECD Paris 2021) 9-11 1
[49] ibid
[50] Ibid, 11-17
[51] Ibid, 11-17