Basilea 3 e gli aumenti di capitale
Ragionando sui possibili aumenti di capitali richiesti dalla nuova normativa tendiamo, erroneamente, a pensare che i nuovi interventi si calcolino semplicemente aumentando il capitale proprio e sostituendo, con qualche ritocco, i vecchi strumenti ibridi con i nuovi.
Non è così.
I nuovi requisiti vanno a toccare molti altri parametri, prima di tutto quelli che contribuiscono a formare il denominatore dell'indice (core)Tier 1. Un esempio si può ricavare anche dall'articolo che riporto più sotto.
La conclusione è che gli aumenti di capitale, da qui al 2019, saranno molto più corposi di quanto immaginiamo. Chi intende entrare nel capitale azionario dei bancari è avvertito.
March 30, 2011, 9:35 a.m. EDT
ING Sees Bigger Basel Hit
AMSTERDAM—Dutch financial giant ING Groep NV warned Wednesday that stricter capital requirements under Basel III regulations will have a larger negative impact on its banking arm than it had said previously, and criticized some elements of the rules for being too harsh.
ING, the bailed-out bancassurer, said in a presentation on its website that the core Tier 1 capital ratio of its bank, which stood at 9.6% at the end of 2010, would reduce to 8.3% if Basel III were implemented now. The hit is nearly double the amount ING flagged months earlier, when it said the negative impact would be around 0.7 percentage point. The Tier 1 ratio is a measure of a bank's capital relative to its assets.
The bigger negative impact is mainly caused by stricter new guidelines under Basel III and higher interest rates, which led to a drop in revaluation reserves, a spokesman said.
Rabobank analyst Cor Kluis estimated ING would have €1.6 billion ($2.26 billion) less excess capital as a result. Still, Mr. Kluis said ING's solvency position remains solid, even taking into account the repayment of €2 billion in state funds in May.
Under Basel III, which will be implemented from 2013 and comes fully into force in 2019, banks will be forced to hold bigger capital cushions and deeper pools of liquidity to guard against potential losses and crippling bank runs.
Although ING said that Basel III is "manageable," it criticized some new rules for being too harsh, especially those that aim to ensure banks have enough liquid assets to shield themselves in case funding markets dry up.
The "liquidity coverage ratio," which will come into force in 2015, contains a "very restrictive" definition of liquid assets and forces banks to hold more cash and government bonds, ING said in the presentation. "[This] will put pressure on margins," it said.
Meanwhile, "the net stable funding ratio," which aims to ensure banks can stay liquid for up to a year and which will be introduced in 2018, is also too harsh, ING said. The company said that it still falls short of the 100% minimum, despite its large mortgage portfolio and relatively low loan-to-deposit ratio. "This triggers the question on the validity of the calibration of this metric," it said.
ING's shares were down 3% at €9.10 by midafternoon in Europe, giving it a market value of about €35 billion.