Safe Bank

The article concerns the issue of maintaining the liquidity of a bank subject to resolution procedure. The legal framework relating to this process focus mainly on meeting the capital requirements of a bank in resolution. Nevertheless, one of the crucial conditions for achieving the goal of resolution is to maintain the bank’s liquidity throughout the process. The establishment, method of establishing and the value of accumulated funds dedicated to resolution in individual countries or a group of countries (e.g. the banking union) implicates that their ability to meet the needs of banks may be insufficient. Especially when the demand for liquidity support is high due to a sudden outflow of funds from customers’ accounts. A circumstance that highlights the significance of the problem of maintaining liquidity is usually the difficult situation of the bank in resolution, limiting or even preventing from obtaining external financing from the market. All the above-mentioned issues is a premise for establishing special solutions or methods for supporting a bank’s liquidity in resolution, the more so as the possible use of operations with a central bank – as a lender of last resort – is conditioned by the fulfillment of a number of requirements that may be difficult or even impossible for such a bank to meet. Against this background, the article reviews and systematizes the solutions that create opportunities for the bank in resolution to obtain external financing from financial system entities, with particular emphasis on financial safety net entities, in order to secure its liquidity position.

Financial crises cause a substantial destruction in the financial system if not timely and correctly managed. For many years government guarantees and banks’ recapitalizations have allowed to counteract the contagion effects of crises and to restore the confidence in the financial market. The recent regulatory changes, like the implementation of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) tries to eliminate the government’s role in managing a financial crisis. However, the question which arises is whether and under what circumstances available methods of resolution are effective during a systemic event. We test the effectiveness of main resolution mechanisms available in the regulatory document on the sample of 215 distressed banks, which were in need of an intervention during 39 systemic banking crises between 1990 and 2017. Our regression results document that the effectiveness of the resolution measures largely depends on the scale and phase of the financial crisis. While the government-assisted merger seems to be effective in the initial phase of crisis (or during less severe crises), during systemic banking crises it does not help to stop the contagion effects. In turn, we find that Asset Management Vehicle (AMV) with sufficient (generally induced by the government) recapitalization is the only effective measure to address banks’ distress, at the same time limiting the systemic effect of the crisis. Our further analysis documents that government should participate in the resolution process, however its role should be limited to minority stakes. In turn, the full bailouts do not appear out to be successful. We find that the regulatory framework is imperfect and the regulators should rethink the design of resolution measures for systemic crises.

The market of hybrid recapitalization instruments is relatively young, but the first years indicate that the regulatory changes to their scope, introduced in response to the weaknesses of Basel II loss absorption instruments, did not significantly reduce the risk of bank failure in relation to classic capital instruments and did not significantly increase the stability of the financial system. Moreover, these instruments increase the cost of banks’ financing while at the same time increasing volatility. Due to the small share of hybrid bonds in banks’ capitals and too low thresholds of triggers, their ability to restructure and recapitalize problem banks without involving public funds is limited. At the same time, the premises for the continuation of the moral hazard are preserved. It is advisable to further regulate the structure of these instruments and calibrate the initiating events, as well as to create an intermediate class of loss absorption instruments.

The main purpose of this article is to analyze the efficiency of the polish commercial banking sector. In order to do this, the author estimated a stochastic frontier function using the information about 24 Polish commercial banks during the period 2011-2018. For the purpose of the estimation, the author defined one product (the value of granted loans and investments in securities) and three inputs: financial (value of deposits), labour (number of employees) and fixed. The results suggest a relatively high level of technical efficiency (c.a. 85%), which increased throughout the years. The decreasing trend in return-to-scale factor (which is on average below 1) suggests that the polish commercial banking’s sector is mature. In line with the expectations, the most important input is the value of deposits (with a level of elasticity higher than 0.8). The remaining two inputs exhibit significantly lower level of elasticity (lower than 0.1). In addition, the author tested if a bank’s size or bank’s capital origin (domestic or foreign) have an influence on the efficiency. The conducted analysis led to the conclusion that there is no difference in average level of efficiency between big and small banks. On the other hand, banks with a majority of foreign capital have on average a higher level of efficiency compared to domestic banks.

Badanie przeprowadzono w związku z niepewnością regulacyjną i wątpliwościami interpretacyjnymi
dotyczącymi równoczesnego stosowania prawa bankowego oraz Wytycznych EBA
w zakresie zasad stosowania outsourcingu w sektorze bankowym.