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Textbook Credit Risk Management For Derivatives Post Crisis Metrics For End Users 1St Edition Ivan Zelenko Auth Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook Credit Risk Management For Derivatives Post Crisis Metrics For End Users 1St Edition Ivan Zelenko Auth Ebook All Chapter PDF
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CREDIT RISK
MANAGEMENT
FOR DERIVATIVES
Post-Crisis
Metrics for End-Users
Ivan Zelenko
Credit Risk Management for Derivatives
Ivan Zelenko
Credit Risk
Management for
Derivatives
Post-Crisis Metrics for End-Users
Ivan Zelenko
Director, Market and Counterparty Risk
The World Bank
Washington, DC
USA
While derivatives have probably been in use long before the term
itself was coined, OTC instruments really came into wider knowledge
and usage during the 1980s. Since then, they have seen quite explo-
sive growth and have been employed for a variety of purposes. At
various times, they have also been viewed as useful instruments, sophis-
ticated means of risk management, and, occasionally, as weapons of mass
destruction especially in the aftermath of financial market crises. Partly,
this may be that although they are widely used, they are not always fully
understood.
In this remarkably lucid and timely book, Ivan brings his deep and
long expertise in the area to improve our understanding of these instru-
ments. He describes their use, provides an objective assessment of their
role during the financial crisis in 2008, and, most importantly, provides
a comprehensive exposition of the developments since that time cover-
ing the vast regulatory, market, institutional, and methodological dimen-
sions, including their relationships in a rigorous yet succinct manner.
Ivan shows that while derivatives did not cause the 2008 crisis, their
use and the institutional arrangements around their use may have ampli-
fied some aspects of the crisis both at the entity and systemic levels. He
skillfully draws on this insight to trace the origins of regulatory and insti-
tutional changes and the impact these have had on derivatives markets.
And even more interestingly, he shows how these changes themselves
may have unintended consequences and introduce new sources of risk.
vii
viii Foreword
With his strong technical background, Ivan walks the reader through
key methodological concepts and approaches to measuring the risks asso-
ciated with the use of derivatives, including measures of exposure as well
as the impact of netting, collateral, credit and debt value adjustments,
and the more recent measures for funding valuation adjustments and
capital value adjustments. Here, he not only provides the mathematical
formulas and their derivation but also describes in a clear manner the
purpose of the various measures and an intuitive interpretation of the
formulas. And in doing so, he does not shy away from describing the
limitations of some these new measures as well as the debates around
their meaning and usefulness. This will make the book appealing both
to the technically minded and to the participant who may want a more
practical understanding.
Ivan complements this technical discussion by weaving in the regula-
tory and institutional features of derivatives and the extraordinary market
developments since the 2008 financial crisis. For example, he addresses
the issues associated with market liquidity and borrowing costs, the
developments in the benchmark risk-free rates such as LIBOR and their
replacements, the development of CCPs and the impacts of initial margin
and variation margin.
This book will be useful to variety of audiences. Technical experts will
find a comprehensive review and summary, and for them the book will
serve as a useful reference. For those who feel they need a better under-
standing of the measures and uses of derivatives, this book will provide
an efficient way to become proficient in both the risk metrics and market
practices in the use of derivatives. Even for those not too familiar with
the markets and instruments, this could form a useful learning tool as
it is so lucidly written; the non-technical reader can even skip some of
the mathematical derivations and still absorb the key points and meas-
ures. Finally for those who have reached senior executive levels or for
board members responsible for risk, this book will bring them up to date
on developments in the derivatives market and enable them to ask the
right questions in the performance of their functions. This is in short a
valuable and highly readable contribution to the body of knowledge on
derivatives.
Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder
Vice President and World Bank Group Chief Risk Officer,
The World Bank, 1818 H Street, NW, Washington DC
Acknowledgements
I feel deeply honored to serve at the Word Bank under Lakshmi Shyam-
Sunder, Vice President and World Bank Group Chief Risk Officer,
and Joaquim Levy, Managing Director and World Bank Group Chief
Financial Officer. I am deeply indebted to the Treasury, presently
under the leadership of Arunma Oteh, Vice President and World Bank
Treasurer, and to the Legal Finance team of the World Bank, for giv-
ing me, over a 12-year course, unmatched access to derivatives markets,
great collegiality and unforgettable conversations. I also thank all my
colleagues in the CRO Vice Presidency of the Bank for their relentless
drive to keep market and counterparty risks in check. I would like to
extend my warmest thanks to Bertrand Badré, Chief Executive Officer of
BlueOrange Capital and formerly World Bank Group Managing Director
and Chief Financial Officer. I would like to thank Afsaneh Mashayekhi
Beschloss, Graeme Wheeler, Madelyn Antoncic, and Kenneth Lay, who
have held the position of World Bank Treasurer over 2000–2015.
ix
Contents
Adjusting for Credit and Debt Value: CVA and DVA 95
Bibliography
155
Index
159
xi
List of Figures
xiii
xiv List of Figures
xvii
Reshaping Derivatives Markets:
The Post-2008 Ambition
Abstract This Chapter looks back at the 2008 crisis, and at the destruc-
tive forces which, combined together, drastically amplified a dynamic of
excess lending and excess leverage to bring down the global financial sys-
tem and cause the worst economic crisis since 1929. Among them were
the opacity and complexity of OTC derivatives. At the G20, or through
major reforms like those in the US and in the EU, world leaders posed
the foundation of a new market framework with the ambition to de-risk,
stabilize and make derivatives markets transparent. Seven years through,
with much of this agenda implemented, the chapter reviews the unfin-
ished part, the unintended consequences and the new systemic threats.
US Real GDP
10
Growth
8
2
In %
-2
-4 Eurozone Real
GDP Growth
-6 Last Quarter
2008
-8
-10
5
6
7
8
0
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
0
0
1
2
4
4
6
n-9
g-9
t-9
c-9
b-0
r-0
n-0
g-0
t-0
c-0
b-0
r-0
n-9
g-1
t-1
c-1
b-1
r-1
n-1
Oc
Oc
Oc
Ap
Ap
Ap
De
De
De
Ju
Au
Fe
Ju
Au
Fe
Ju
Au
Fe
Ju
Fig. 1 US and Euro area Real Growth Quarterly Data June 1995–June 2016.
Source Bloomberg
financial system may have been stabilized for the most part, but the US
Fed is only gradually and cautiously moving away from its highly accom-
modating monetary stance, while the ECB and the Bank of Japan remain
committed to negative rates and quantitative easing. In most Western
countries, the fall in tax revenues in the aftermath of the 2009 recession,
and the emergency spending by governments to rescue and stabilize their
banking sector, has brought public debt to historically high levels. The
return to “normal” in terms of growth and inflation remains an ongoing
concern.
Due to exceptional measures taken—low rates, quantitative easing,
and powerful regulatory tightening—and their subsequent very gradual
removal, there are still several “pockets” of global and derivative markets
that are not back to their “natural” equilibrium.
RESHAPING DERIVATIVES MARKETS: THE POST-2008 AMBITION 3
1930-33 2009
0
1961-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-99 2000-08 2010-15
-2
-4
-6
-8
Fig. 2 World GDP Growth (Annual %). Source World Bank Annual Data from
1961; JP Morgan
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
b-
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
Fe
-20
Fig. 3 USD Libor–Euribor 1-year basis swap spread. Source Bloomberg, daily
data, in basis points
new market then attracts many investors and enjoys a strong growth; at
a second stage though, there is excess, caused by the attractiveness of
this market: excess risk taking, excess search for return; at a further stage,
new investments are no longer viable: it is not known immediately to
market participants, and investment continues unabated; but this non-
viability is eventually revealed: A panic sell-off occurs with all investors
attempting to exit at the same time while suffering heavy losses.
The business model, created around 2000, sometimes referred to
as: originate and securitize, consisted in granting loans to many differ-
ent borrowers, pooling a large enough number of these loans to benefit
from diversification, then making the pool the assets of a new financial
entity, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which would issue notes of vari-
ous ratings and credit risk profiles (structured notes) based on the pool.
Lightly regulated, these SPVs were performing the traditional functions
of a bank, but outside of the balance sheet and of the regulatory frame-
work of a bank; they were a key actor of shadow banking. As described
by Minsky, shadow banking followed the fatal path to excess; loan secu-
ritization, implemented in vast amounts, more and more rapidly, and
with less and less care, went far beyond the viability line. A name was
coined with the riskiest product: subprime or structured note backed by
suprime loans.
The non-viability was eventually revealed in August 2007, when a
fund declared itself unable to honor a redemption because of an “evap-
oration of liquidity”. Rather than with a massive sell-off and price fall,
investors were this time confronted with the total disappearance of
liquidity, a total paralysis of the loan securitization market: There was no
longer any counterparty willing to buy securitized loans. Paralysis was
coming not only from fear, but also from the complexity and opacity of
the products.
With the securitized loan sector paralyzed, investors turned to the
banks that had sold them the products. Strongly committed to their
client relationship, and thereby forced to repurchase, banks started re-
intermediating securitized loans, and, more worryingly, their risk. Soon
enough, the fear, the opacity, and complexity of the securitized prod-
ucts caused liquidity to dry out in the interbank borrowing market: Each
bank’s creditworthiness was being reassessed. Even as central banks were
providing emergency liquidity, a number of several large dealer banks
were being suspected of being insolvent.
6 I. ZELENKO
USD Libor 3-month minus OIS 3-month Source Bloomberg, daily data
Lehman
Bankruptcy
Sep 15 2008
Euro
Sovereign
Liquidity Crisis
Freeze August 2011
Aug 8
2007
Fig. 4 Breaking Points during the 2007–2008 Crisis and Impact on Libor-OIS
3-month Spread. Source Bloomberg, daily data
At the very moment banks were becoming concerned with their ability
to fund themselves, another major vulnerability surfaced, the consequence
of years of large-scale excess leverage by banks. Looking to maximize
profit, banks were funding the assets with short-term wholesale funding,
from other banks or fund managers, using secured (repos) or unsecured
borrowing (commercial paper or Libor unsecured interbank borrowing).
The classic run on deposits following the loss of trust in a bank took a new
form: Banks were seeing investors running away from all their funding
instruments, be they repos or interbank loans. Several banks experiencing
severe runs had to be taken over by other banks or by the government.
One among them, Lehman Brothers, for lack of rescue, filed for bank-
ruptcy on September 15, 2008. Because of Lehman’s systemic role in
the financial market architecture, this precipitated the crisis to a deeper
level. In particular, Lehman was a major dealer in the over-the-counter
(OTC) derivative market. By their very definition, OTC derivatives are
bilateral, idiosyncratic, and often innovative contracts. The unwinding
of all Lehman positions and of all the collateral posted or received, and
most often re-pledged by Lehman, created unprecedented disorder and
turmoil in global financial markets (see Fig. 4).
RESHAPING DERIVATIVES MARKETS: THE POST-2008 AMBITION 7
In what follows we first take stock of the effort to regain control over the
global financial system and of what has been implemented so far, seven
years after Pittsburg; we will then turn to the analysis of the effects, to the
extent they can be perceived and analyzed over a short period of time.
2 Regaining Control
The FSB report also identifies areas that merit ongoing attention at the
senior level:
Moreover, the FSB asks for support from G20 Leaders to overcome the
following implementation challenges:
In sum, the implementation of the Basel III agenda for stronger capital
requirements, and for the new liquidity, funding and leverage ratios, has
been steadily progressing; the case for managing the systemic risk of SIFIs
has advanced, even if resolution regimes are still being implemented
within local jurisdictions; on the other hand, the definition of a regula-
tory framework for the shadow banking sector remains at an early stage.
When it comes to OTC derivatives, the picture is contrasted. CCPs
have been implemented for essential segments of OTC derivative trading.
Margining regulations are being put into place, with the September 2016
start date in the USA, and implementation in the EU reaching its final stage.
But there seems to be challenges in the extension of the area covered by
CCPs, and in the transparency agenda pursued via TRs. Meanwhile, swap
exchanges or Swap Execution Facilities still constitute a remote objective.
of default of their swap counterparty. Given that swap dealers are coun-
terparties to practically all trades, the financial system is protected against
the risk of contagion following the default of a dealer bank. Lastly, the
financial system’s transparency is enhanced since the majority of trades
are booked with the CCP.
The post-crisis regulation has already exerted a profound impact on
OTC derivative trading and on the management of credit risk by dealer
banks. What long looked as an ineluctable increase in the volume and the
credit risk of derivatives has been curved.
The total notional amount of outstanding OTC derivatives, the well-
known emblematic statistic of the BIS, which has been exponentially
increasing in the hundreds of trillion dollars, has peaked at $711 trillion
in 2013 and then moved down to $493 trillion at the end-2015 (see
Fig. 5). New capital, liquidity, and margining requirements have given
dealers a strong incentive to reduce their swap books. Two dealers facing
each other can net out a lot of positions and thus considerably reduce
the number of derivative trades among them. This practice is called
trade compression. They are helped by service providers such as the firm
TriOptima, which run algorithms on derivative books and offer both
parties to reduce their respective books while keeping the same market
value and position.
Gross market value, which measures counterparty credit risk with the
Mark-to-Market of the position, but before the application of bilateral net-
ting agreements, and before collateral, has also gone down between end-
June 2010 and end-June 2016 (from $24.7 to $20.7 trillion, see Table 2).
Gross credit exposure, which reflects the impact of bilateral netting agree-
ments, has stayed practically constant, going from $3.6 to $3.7 trillion.
800
OTC
700 Derivatives
600
500
400
100
0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
4,000 700
3,500 OTC Derivatives 600
$ trillion, right scale
3,000
500
2,500
400
2,000
300
1,500
Collateral
$ billion, left scale 200
1,000
500 100
- 0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
600
500
400
$493 Trillion in
December 2015
300
$544 T rillion in June 2016
200
100
0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Conway House.
The first occupant of the fourth house on the site of the Freemasons’
buildings seems to have been Lord Conway. A deed, dated 20th December,
1641,[382] mentions Edward, Lord Viscount Conway, as then in occupation,
and no doubt the house is identical with that referred to as Lord Conway’s
residence in Queen Street in a letter dated 31st March, 1639.[383]
Edward, second Viscount Conway and Killultagh, was born in 1594,
and succeeded to the title in February, 1631.[384] Shortly afterwards he was
living in Drury Lane.[385]
His residence in Great Queen Street dates from 1638
or the commencement of 1639, but he did not purchase the
house until 17th July, 1645.[386]
Conway died at Lyons in 1655[387], and was succeeded
by his son Edward, the third Viscount and first Earl of
Conway, born about 1623. He held several important military Conway.
appointments, and was for two years, 1681–3, secretary of
state for the north department. He was the author of a work
entitled Opuscula Philosophica. He was married three times, his first wife
being Anne, the daughter of Sir Henry Finch. Lady Conway was a most
accomplished woman, her chief study being metaphysical science, which
she carried on with the utmost assiduity in spite of tormenting headaches
which never left her. In later life she adopted the tenets of the Society of
Friends. She died on 23rd February, 1679, while her husband was absent in
Ireland, but in order that he might be enabled to see her features again, Van
Helmont, her physician, preserved the body in spirits of wine and placed it
in a coffin with a glass over the face. The burial finally took place on 17th
April, 1679. She was the author of numerous works, but only one, a
philosophical treatise, was printed, and that in a Latin translation published
at Amsterdam in 1690. Conway was created an Earl in 1679 and died in
August, 1683, leaving his estates to his cousin, Popham Seymour, who
assumed the name of Conway.
Up to 1670 the Earl seems to have resided frequently in Great Queen
Street. The Hearth Tax Rolls for 1665 and 1666 show him as occupier,
though the former contains a note: “Note, Lord Wharton to pay,”[388] and
several references to his residence there occur in the correspondence of the
time. Thus on 18th March, 1664–5, he writes to Sir Edward Harley, “Direct
to me at my house in Queen Street”;[389] in June [?], 1665, he informs Sir
John Finch: “I am settled in my house in Queen Street”;[390] a letter to him
describes how on the occasion of the Great Fire in 1666, “your servant in
Queen Street put some of your best chairs and fine goods into your rich
coach and sent for my horses to draw them to Kensington, where they now
are”;[391] on 19th October, 1667, his mother writes to him at “Great Queen
Street, London”;[392] in February, 1667–8, he tells Sir J. Finch that he hopes
“you will ere long be merry in my house in Queen Street, which you are to
look upon as your own”;[393] and on 4th March, 1668–9, Robert Bransby
asks for payment of his bill of £200 “for goods delivered at your house in
Queen Street.”[394] On 25th September, 1669, we learn that a new (or
perhaps rather an additional) resident is expected, Edward Wayte
mentioning in a letter that “the room your lordship wished to have new
floored is going to be occupied by Lord Orrery’s[395] daughter, who is
coming with her mother to England.”[396] The visit evidently took place, for
on 4th November, 1669, Conway’s importunate creditor, Bransby, writes, in
connection with the non-payment of his account, “I beg the delivery of
divers goods in the house in Queen Street, which are being used by some of
Lord Orrery’s family, and also of some green serge chairs lent, which are in
your study”;[397] and again on 15th March, 1669–70: “there are some goods
belonging to me in the house in Queen Street, which are in Lord Orrery’s
wearing.”[398] Later in the same year the house seems to have been given
up, as Bransby on 27th September in the course of another pitiful complaint
says: “I hear that you have disposed of your house in Queen Street and sent
the furniture to Ragley.”
The Hearth Tax Roll for 1673 shows the house in occupation of
“Slingsby, Esq.,” who was probably the immediate successor of Conway.
In the absence of more definite information Slingsby cannot be
identified. It is just possible that he was Henry Slingsby, the Master of the
Mint, and friend of Evelyn.
In the Hearth Tax Roll for 1675 the house is shown as empty, and in
the ratebook for 1683 the name of the occupier is given as: “Sir Fr. North,
Knt., Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.” It is known (see below)
that the offices of the Great Seal were situated in this street in 1677, and
there can be no doubt that this was the house.
It would appear, therefore, that the premises were taken for the
purpose of the offices of the Great Seal some time in the period 1675–77,
and consequently during the time that the seal was in the custody of Finch.
Heneage Finch, first Earl of Nottingham, was born in 1621, the eldest
son of Sir Heneage Finch, recorder of London and speaker in Charles I.’s
first parliament. On leaving Christ Church he joined the Inner Temple,
where he acquired a great reputation and an extensive practice. On the
Restoration he became solicitor-general and was created a baronet. As the
official representative of the court in the House of Commons, he seems to
have given every satisfaction to the king, despite the fact that on at least one
important point (the toleration of dissent) he opposed the royal desire. He
was indeed in such favour that the king, with all the great officers of state,
attended a banquet in his house at the Inner Temple in 1661. In 1670, he
became attorney-general and counsellor to the queen. On the dismissal of
Shaftesbury in 1673, he was made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and was
raised to the peerage as Baron Finch of Daventry, and a year afterwards was
appointed Lord Chancellor. During his term of office the well-known
burglary took place at the house in Great Queen Street. Under date of 7th
February, 1676–7, Anthony Wood writes: “About one or two in the morning
the Lord Chancellor his mace was stolen out of his house in Queen Street.
The seal lay under his pillow, so the thief missed it. The famous thief that
did it was Thomas Sadler, soon after taken and hanged for it at Tyburn.”[399]
As Lord Chancellor, Finch had the unpleasant task of explaining to
the House of Commons how the royal pardon given to Danby in bar of the
impeachment bore the great seal. He was created Earl of Nottingham in
1681 and died in December, 1682. “The fact that throughout an
unceasing official career of more than twenty years, in a time of
passion and intrigue, Finch was never once the subject of
parliamentary attack, nor ever lost the royal confidence, is a
remarkable testimony both to his probity and discretion.”[400] He
was the Amri of Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel.
Finch. Francis North, first Baron Guilford, was the
third son of Dudley, fourth Baron North, and was
born in 1637. He entered the Middle Temple in 1655,
and at once gave himself up to hard study. He was called to
the Bar in 1661, and seems very early to have acquired
practice. His first great case occurred in 1668, when he was
called upon, in the attorney-general’s absence, to argue in the
House of Lords for the King v. Holles and others. He at once North.
sprang into favour and became king’s counsel. In 1671 he was
made solicitor-general and received the honour of
knighthood. In 1673, he succeeded Finch as attorney-general, and in 1675
was appointed chief justice of the common pleas. On the death of the Earl of
Nottingham in 1682 he succeeded him as Lord Keeper, and from that day,
his brother Roger says, “he never (as poor folks say), joyed after it, and he
hath often vowed to me that he had not known a peaceful minute since he
touched that cursed seal.”[401] In 1683 he was raised to the peerage as Baron
Guilford. From this time his health began more and more to fail, and
though he continued diligently to perform his duties, he was compelled in
the summer of 1685 to retire to his seat at Wroxton, Oxfordshire, taking the
seal with him and attended by the officers of the court. Here he died on 5th
September, 1685, and the next day his brothers, accompanied by the
officials, took the seal to Windsor, and delivered it up to the king, who at
once entrusted it to Jeffreys.
George Jeffreys, first Baron Jeffreys of Wem, was born in 1648 at
Acton in Denbighshire. He was ambitious to be a great lawyer, and after
overcoming with difficulty his father’s objections, he was admitted to the
Inner Temple in 1663. He was called to the Bar in 1668, and by his wit and
convivial habits making friends of the attorneys practising at the Old Bailey
and Hicks’s Hall, he soon gained a good practice. He was appointed
common serjeant of the City of London in 1671. He now began to plead in
Westminster Hall, and by somewhat doubtful means he obtained an
introduction to the court. In 1677 he was made solicitor-general to the Duke
of York, and was knighted, and in 1678 became Recorder of the City. Both as
counsel and recorder he took a prominent part in the prosecutions arising
from the Popish Plot, and as a reward for his services in this direction, and
for initiating the movement of the “abhorrers” against the “petitioners,” who
were voicing the popular demand for the summoning of parliament, he was
appointed chief justice of Chester.
The City having complained to the House of Commons of the action
of its recorder in obstructing the citizens in their attempts to have a
parliament summoned, the House passed a resolution requesting the king
to remove him from all public offices. The king took no such action, but
Jeffreys submitted to a reprimand on his knees at the bar of the House, and
resigned the recordership, eliciting the remark from Charles that he was
“not parliament proof.”
In 1683, Jeffreys was promoted to be Lord Chief Justice, and was
soon a member of the privy council. Shortly afterwards he tried Algernon
Sidney for high treason, conducting the proceedings with manifest
unfairness and convicting the prisoner on quite illegal grounds. On the
accession of James II. in 1685, he was raised to the peerage, an honour
never before conferred upon a chief justice during his tenure of office.
In July, after the battle of Sedgmoor, he was appointed president of
the commission for the western circuit, and on 25th August he opened the
commission at Winchester. This, the “bloody assizes,” was conducted with
merciless severity, but the king was so satisfied that, on Jeffreys calling at
Windsor on his return to London, he was given the custody of the great seal
with the title of Lord Chancellor. During the next three years he vigorously
supported the king in his claims to prerogative. He presided over the
ecclesiastical commission, and over the proceedings against the
Universities. Jeffreys thus became identified with the most tyrannical
measures of James II., and therefore, when the king in December, 1688,
fled from the country, he also endeavoured to escape. He disguised himself
as a common sailor, but was recognised, and was only saved from lynching
by a company of the train-bands. He was confined at his own request in the
Tower, and here, his health having been seriously undermined by long
continued disease and dissipation, he died in April, 1689. His name has
become a by-word of infamy, although there can be little doubt that he was
not entirely as black as he has been painted, and no impartial account can
fail to insist on the traditional picture of him being modified in many
respects. Nevertheless, when every allowance is made, the character of
Jeffreys is one of the most hateful in English history.
On his accepting the Great Seal he also took over the house in Great
Queen Street,[402] but about 1687 he removed to the new mansion, which he
had had built in Westminster overlooking the park.[403]
For the next few years the history of Conway House is a blank. In
1696 a private Act[404] was obtained, which, after reciting that there was a
mansion house, with stables and outhouses, in Queen Street, St. Giles,
forming portion of the estate belonging to the Marchioness of
Normanby[405] (life tenant) and of the estate belonging to Popham Seymour
alias Conway, and that the house was liable to fall down from want of
repair, gave authority to arrange with a builder to effect the repairs and to
let the house for 51 years at a proper rent.
The work was evidently carried out without delay, for the Jury
Presentment Roll for 1698 has the entry “Dr. Chamberlain for the Land
Credit Office,” but little luck seems to have attended the house during most
of its remaining half-century of existence.
The sewer ratebooks for 1700 and 1703 make no mention of the
house. Those for 1715, 1720 and 1723, and the parish ratebooks from their
commencement in 1730 until 1734 mention it as “The Land Bank.” The first
entry refers to it as “Empty many years,” and it was still empty in 1720.
Certain deeds of later date[406] allude to the premises as a “large old house
or building commonly called or known by the name of the Land Bank.”[407]
The Land Bank, as known to history, was an institution founded in
1696, for the purpose of raising a public loan of two millions on the basis of
the estimated value of real property. Its promoter was Dr. Chamberlain, an
accoucheur.[408] It is unnecessary to give here a full account of the scheme,
but it may be regarded as certain that it would never have been supported in
Parliament but for the satisfaction felt by many influential members in
dealing a blow at the recently formed Bank of England.
The evidence given above is decisive as to some connection between
the house and this scheme, but no reference to the former has been found
amongst the literature on the Land Bank.[409] The fact that Dr. Chamberlain
was in occupation of the premises in 1698, two years after the ignominious
collapse of the scheme, shows that the Land Bank still pursued some kind of
existence, and, indeed, there is other evidence that it was surviving in some
form in January, 1698.[410]
The above evidence shows that for many years after Dr.
Chamberlain’s tenancy the house lay empty, and not until 1735 is the name
of an occupier given. This was Thomas Galloway, who stayed until 1739.
After this, the house again remained empty, until in 1743 it was pulled
down, and its frontage to Great Queen Street was occupied by four smaller
houses. The residents in the two westernmost of these (the other two
occupied the site of Markmasons’ Hall) were as follows:—