Basel II, Sovereign Ratings and Transfer Risk External Versus Internal Ratings
Basel II, Sovereign Ratings and Transfer Risk External versus Internal Ratings by Stijn Claessens and Geert Embrechts* 07 May 2002 Abstract Basel II puts great emphasis on external ratings, including from rating agencies, to quantify credit risks, but it also allows financial institutions to use their internal risk ratings. This is also the case for international lending, but following recent emerging markets’ crises, the quality of sovereign ratings has received much criticism. At the same time, little is known about the quality of internal ratings of country risk. Using data from a major international bank, we assess the relative performance of internal and external country ratings. We find that internal and external ratings are driven by similar factors and both underestimate “event risks”, but that external ratings are somewhat slower in adjusting to a financial crisis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ University of Amsterdam and Rabobank International, the Netherlands respectively. For presentation at the conference Basel II: An Economic Assessment, Bank for International Settlements, Basel, 17-18 May 2002, organized by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Journal of Financial Intermediation, and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The opinions do not necessarily express those of the Rabobank. The authors would like to thank Peter Boswijk and Martijn Krijger for help with the statistical analysis and Michiel van Voorst, Leendert Colijn, Adriaan Kukler, Frank Ligtenberg and Leonhardt van Efferink for comments on an earlier version. 1 Introduction In January 2001 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision issued a consultative document on a new Basel Capital Accord (the ‘Basel II’ proposal). Under the standardized approach, Basel II puts greater emphasis on the role of external ratings, including from rating agencies, to assess credit risks.
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