Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction To Interest Rate Risk Management PDF
Introduction To Interest Rate Risk Management PDF
Banks hold different categories of assets and liabilities with different maturities carrying different
interest rates. The bank’s ability in matching this asset and liability structure results in improving its
returns. Asset liability management involves managing different risks such as interest rate risk, credit
risk, operational risk, exchange rate risk, market risk, liquidity risk, contingency risk and treasury
management risk.
Variations in interest rates will impact the value of assets and liabilities that a bank holds. Therefore
they need to devise tools and techniques to handle the impact of these changes. Interest rate risk
management helps in maximizing bank profits and reduces losses and protects bank assets. The
nature of banks having a smaller capital base compared to the larger asset base makes banks
vulnerable to capital erosion due to reduction in value of assets.
Bank balance sheet before capital erosion
Liabilities Assets
Bank balance sheet after capital erosion on account of 2% value reduction in advances shows a
58.8% reduction in capital.
Liabilities Assets
There are several models of risk management through asset liability management. They are asset
models, liability models, randomness models, multi‐dimensional models and computer aided asset
liability management (CALM) models. Asset models and liabilities models focus on one aspect of the
balance sheet. The randomness model is based on selected criteria that impact the bank
performance. Multi‐dimensional models look at impact of selected variables on several independent
variables. The CALM models are comprehensive and aim at dynamic asset liability management.
In managing risks banks need to focus attention on volume, mix, maturity, rate sensitivity, quality
and liquidity and acceptable risk reward ratio. The parameters for ALM are net interest margin,
market value of equity and economic equity ratio.
Reserve Bank of India has provided guidelines in terms of asset liability management. The traditional
approach focuses on operational limits on credit, loan provisioning, portfolio diversification and
collateralization. The innovative methods suggested include loan securitization, capital adequacy
and derivative products.
For successful risk management by banks, well developed money market, trading in repo
transactions, forward trading, underwriting facilities and derivative markets are essential.
Gap Analysis
The technique used by banks to analyze the impact of interest rate changes on the assets, liabilities
and net worth. Gap is the difference between rate sensitive asset and rate sensitive liabilities. A
negative gap is associated with increase in interest rates and a positive gap is associated with decline
in interest rates. Estimated loss is computed with reference to value change within each time bucket
and aggregate difference between assets and liabilities.
Liabilities Assets
Rate Sensitive Liabilities Rate Sensitive Assets
Fixed Rate Liabilities Fixed Rate Assets
Total Total
A positive funds gap shows financing of rate sensitive assets by fixed rate liabilities. A negative funds
gap on the other hand shows fixed rate assets financed by rate sensitive liabilities.
Example
Liabilities Assets
Rate Sensitive Liabilities Rate Sensitive Assets
Advances 443000
Liabilities Assets
Rate Sensitive Liabilities Rate Sensitive Assets
A conservative bank maintains a positive gap and gains from increase in interest rate. An aggressive
bank maintains a negative gap and gains from decrease in interest rate. The net interest income
likely to affect the bank due to changing interest rate scenarios can be computed by multiplying
change in rate with the gap.
Other ways of representing gap include relative gap and gap ratio. When a bank has a positive gap a
possible management action at times of rising interest rates would be to increase rate sensitive
assets or reduce rate sensitive liabilities. Another possible action is to extend liability maturity or
shorten asset maturities. If on the other hand interest rates are falling, a reverse action will be
initiated.
Duration Analysis
Duration analysis aims at maximizing market value of equity. Duration is computed taking weighted
average of cash flows of an instrument discounted to present time. Duration gap is computed
subtracting weighted liabilities duration from asset duration. The weights are computed by dividing
total liabilities by total assets.
Duration analysis assumes precise knowledge of duration of assets and liabilities, market value of
assets, a flat interest rate structure, no impact of convexity on valuation and a parallel shift in the
change of interest rates.
Computation of duration gap
Assets Liabilities
1 year 7% 30 1 year 6% 50
Capital 10
100 100
Assets Discounted
Cash Flows
(1 + 0.09)
Loan: 7.00 = 6.25 67.63
(1 + 0.12)
77.00 = 61.38
(1 + 0.12)2
Asset Value 97.63
(1 + 0.08)
(1 + 0.11)
= 3.60 = 2.92
(1 + 0.11)2
= 43.60 = 31.88
(1 + 0.11)3
T Bill : 1.000
Loan : 1.908
Weighteed Average d
duration 0.30
0 x 1.000 1.635
0.70 x 1.908
on equity
Impact o
Equity Value
0.9
0.02
‐0.063
Macauley’s Duration ‐0.057
Decline in Equity Value (Duration Gap) ‐0.010
Summary of impact of duration gap on changing interest rate scenarios can be stated as follows.
Immunization is the process of achieving a zero duration gap. Immunization of bank portfolio is
optimum when the gain from the higher reinvestment rate is offset by capital loss and the change in
capital is insensitive to changes in interest rate fluctuations.
Derivatives in ALM
Financial derivative instruments are instruments of risk management used by banks for hedging
expected variations in returns or values. Some of the derivative instruments used by banks to hedge
their interest rate risk are forward rate agreements, futures, options, swaps, caps, floors and collars.
Forward rate agreements are contracts where a bank anticipating increase or decrease in interest
rates enters into a contract with counterparty for exchange of values at predetermined rates.
Futures are similar contracts where banks take position to settle contracts at current rates on a
future date. These contracts are marked to market and are for a fixed duration. Options are
contracts that provide a right to buy or sell at an agreed rate an instrument on a future date. Caps,
floors and collars provide the upper and lower limits for interest rate fluctuations which triggers a
contract on the banks. Swaps aim at exchange of fixed rate instruments to fluctuating rate
instruments at predetermined rates on a future date.
Swaps
Hedge P
Positions
Hedge: Long Futures s: Heddge: Short Fuutures:
en rates fallss
loss whe losss when rates rise
Futures Profile
A) Profitt or loss for b
buyer of call B) Profit or loss for buyer of put o
option
option aand buyer of futures option
n and seller o
of futures
Caps
Floors
Collar
Interest rrate risk man
nagement
Hedging
• Example ‐ Interest‐rate forward contract
• Purchase of T‐Bills with a maturity of one year.
Advantages
• Risk of increased interest rate is reduced
• Flexibility can be incorporated in the contract if they are traded in the Over‐The‐
Counter (OTC) market.
Disadvantages
• OTC contracts have less liquidity
• Default risk to the bank
Questions