Basel II and Credit Ratings - UBA Plc

Basel II and Credit Ratings
Andre J. Blaauw
tools, etc. He was also a member
of the Barclays Group Risk
Technical committee, the
oversight body in the Barclays
group for all technical risk
management frameworks
implementation. During the 4
years of Basel II implementation
in South Africa he served as the
chairman of the credit risk task
identities. More recently, the fraudsters have become more sophisticated in
creating authentic looking email IDs of the Central Bank of Nigeria and
Interswitch. They have also created websites that appear genuine to the ordinary
consumer.
Consumers must be aware that, BANKS AND CARD COMPANIES WOULD NEVER
ASK FOR A CARDHOLDER'S PIN NUMBER and are therefore urged to call their
bank on the BANK'S customer service line (not on the number provided on the
fraudulent email!) and confirm the authenticity of the request. Consumers are
advised to immediately delete such emails and advise friends to do the same.
group of the accord
implementation structure, lead by
the SA central bank. Andre has
been a regular presenter at
conferences and international
risk industry events. The World
Bank invited him on two
occasions to share his experience
of Basel II implementation in
South Africa with the central
banks of other emerging markets
at Basel II implementation
planning events in Colombia and
Turkey.
ASSET CLASSES
BII recognises the fact that the characteristics driving credit risk differs by
segment. Rating system requirements are therefore differentiated by the
following asset classes: corporate exposures, specialised lending (project
finance, etc.), sovereign exposure, public sector entities, bank exposures, other
financial institutions, retail exposures, revolving exposures, purchased
receivables, securitized assets, SME's, etc. Where risk behaviour differs within an
asset class – e.g. salaried v self employed retail customers, further differentiation
of the rating system is required so that the unique credit risk characteristics of
each homogenous risk pool is adequately captured.
Risk grading, default estimation and loss estimation models and methods must
be implemented for each asset class/ homogenous risk pool. With the South
African implementation of BII, banks typically had to implement 40-50 rating
models to meet the requirements for accurate risk differentiation by rating
systems.
To execute its BII adoption, UBA has commenced with the design of a
comprehensive rating systems architecture that will provide the key building
blocks for ratings based decisions. This will enable scientific measurement and
management of credit risk in all the group's local and international customer
segments.
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