Does capital headroom-i.e. the difference between capital ratios and capital requirements-affect banks' cost of equity? Using quarterly data on listed euro area banks from Q4 2014 to Q1 2025, we document a robust negative relationship: a one percentage point increase in capital headroom reduces the cost of equity by 10-12 basis points. This effect is driven by capitalisation rather than requirements and is also non-linear: the reduction in the cost of equity is strongest for banks with low headroom and weakens as headroom increases. Maintaining adequate headroom above minimum requirements lowers equity costs by enhancing resilience which is valued by investors.

We analyse how capital management motives and accounting discretion have affected euro area banks’ provisioning behaviour since the adoption of expected credit loss accounting (IFRS 9). Using granular loan-level data, we investigate provisioning dynamics around firm-level credit events and the macroeconomic shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that capital management motives have a strong impact on provisioning under IFRS 9, with less capitalised banks generally provisioning less than their better capitalised peers. Moreover, the bulk of provisioning under IFRS 9 continues to occur at the time of default, in contrast with the expected functioning of the approach. Overall, our findings suggest that IFRS 9 allows for substantial heterogeneity in provisioning across banks, while aggregate provisioning patterns have not been fundamentally altered by the new approach.

Using information from the ECB’s Bank Lending Survey, we examine how the implementation of borrower-based macroprudential measures (BBMs) between 2009-Q1 and 2023-Q3 affected mortgage lending standards in a sample of 15 euro area countries. We find that banks generally tightened credit standards around the implementation of BBMs, with the strongest effect occurring contemporaneously. Such tightening of credit standards is observed for different types of BBMs, including limits on loan-to-value or debt-service-to-income ratios and maturities. We also find mild evidence that legally binding measures imply a stronger tightening of credit standards than measures in the form of non-binding recommendations. Finally, this tightening is more pronounced in cases where mortgage loan growth or real estate price growth is high, consistent with BBMs effectively smoothing the credit cycle.

This article examines the evolution and challenges of model-based capital regulation in banking, discussing its impact on banking system resilience and financial stability. Introduced with Basel II, model-based regulation sought to link capital requirements to asset risk but encountered practical issues like discretion in banks’ risk reporting, complexity, and procyclicality, weakening its effectiveness. Large banks often exploited modeling discretion to reduce capital requirements, lowering equity levels and amplifying systemic risk, as evidenced in the global financial crisis of 2008. While greater distance between banks and supervisors limits discretion, the findings underscore the advantages of simpler frameworks, such as leverage ratios, for enhancing transparency and stability. Political economy considerations, however, complicate international regulatory alignment, as national regulators balance stability objectives with considerations about domestic competitiveness. The article concludes that streamlined regulation paired with strong and robust equity standards would bolster financial stability and calls for further research on regulatory frameworks and systemic risk.

What do 120 years of data say about the relationship between geopolitical risk and bank solvency? We find that a two standard deviation increase in a geopolitical risk index is associated with a decrease in the bank capital-to-asset ratio of around 0.2 percentage points. The effect is non-linear: only very high geopolitical risk leads to a sizeable decline in bank capitalisation, while more moderate increases of the index exert a negligible impact. This suggests that only major geopolitical events are likely to affect bank solvency to a degree that can endanger financial stability.

This paper investigates both the magnitude and the drivers of bank window dressing behavior in euro-denominated repo markets. Using a confidential transaction-level data set, our analysis illustrates that banks engineer an economically sizeable contraction in their repo transactions around regulatory reporting dates. We establish a causal link between these reductions and banks’ incentives to window dress and document the role of the leverage ratio and the G-SIB framework as the most relevant drivers of window dressing behavior. Our findings suggest that regulatory action is warranted to limit banks’ ability to window dress.

The 2019 revision to the Capital Requirements Directive allowed the systemic risk buffer to be applied on a sectoral basis in the European Union. Since then an increasing number of countries have implemented the new tool, primarily to address vulnerabilities in the residential real estate sector. To inform and foster a consistent understanding and application of the buffer, this paper proposes two specific methodologies. First, an indicator-based approach which provides an aggregate measure of cyclical vulnerabilities in the residential real estate sector and can signal a potential need to activate a sectoral buffer to address them. Second, a model-based approach following a stress test rationale simulating mortgage loan losses under adverse conditions, which can be used as a starting point for calibrating a sectoral buffer. Besides these methodological contributions, the paper conceptually discusses the interaction between the sectoral buffer and other prudential requirements and instruments, ex ante and ex post policy impact assessment, and factors guiding the possible release of the buffer. Finally, the paper considers possible future applications of sectoral buffer requirements for other types of sectoral vulnerabilities, for example in relation to commercial real estate, exposures to non-financial corporations or climate-related risks.

We analyse the impact of the adoption of expected credit loss accounting (IFRS 9) on the timeliness and potential procyclicality of banks’ loan loss provisioning. We use granular loan-level data from the euro area’s credit register and investigate both firm-level credit events and macroeconomic shocks (2020 COVID-19 pandemic, 2022 energy price shock). We find that provisions under the new standard are higher before default and more responsive to shocks. However, the majority of provisioning still occurs at the time of default and the dynamics around default events are similar to pre-existing national standards. Additionally, banks with a larger capital headroom provision significantly more, particularly for loans using IFRS 9. This suggests a higher risk of underprovisioning for less capitalized banks.

ABSTRACTUsing loan‐level data from Germany, we investigate how the introduction of model‐based capital regulation affected banks' ability to absorb shocks. The objective of this regulation was to enhance financial stability by making capital requirements responsive to asset risk. Our evidence suggests that banks “optimized” model‐based regulation to lower their capital requirements. Banks systematically underreported risk, with underreporting more pronounced for banks with higher gains from it. Moreover, large banks benefitted from the regulation at the expense of smaller banks. Overall, our results suggest that sophisticated rules may have undesired effects if strategic misbehavior is difficult to detect.

This paper uses granular data on syndicated loans to analyse the impact of international reforms for Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) on bank lending behaviour. Using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, we find no effect of the reforms on overall credit supply, while at the same time documenting a substantial decline in borrower- and loan-specific risk factors for the affected banks. Moreover, we detect a significant decline in the pricing gap between interest rates charged by G-SIBs and other banks, which we interpret as indirect evidence for a reduction in funding cost subsidies. Overall, our results suggest that the G-SIB reforms have helped to mitigate moral hazard problems associated with systemically important banks, while the consequences for the real economy have been limited.

This article discusses capital buffer usability in the Basel III framework. Although buffers are intended to be used in a crisis, a number of factors can prevent banks from drawing them down in case of need, with potentially adverse effects for the economy. The article reviews the functioning of the framework in the COVID-19 crisis and outlines possible implications for future policy design. JEL Classification: G01, G21, G28

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This paper illustrates that systemically important banks reduce a range of activities at year-end, leading to lower additional capital requirements in the form of G-SIB buffers. The effects are stronger for banks with higher incentives to reduce the indicators, and for banks with balance sheet structures that can more easily be adjusted. The observed reduction in activity may imply an overall underestimation of banks' systemic importance as well as a distortion in their relative ranking, with implications for banks' ability to absorb losses. Moreover, a reduction in the provision of certain services at year-end may adversely affect overall market functioning.

This article evaluates whether the global systemically important bank (G-SIB) framework has incentivised banks to adopt window-dressing behaviour, and whether their engagement in capital market activities has facilitated it. Window-dressing behaviour could have detrimental effects on financial stability, for at least two reasons: first, it may imply an underestimation of banks’ overall systemic importance and a distortion of the relative ranking in favour of banks that engage in more window-dressing behaviour; second, overall market functioning may be adversely affected if banks reduce the provision of certain services towards the end of the year. The evidence presented in this article suggests that both G-SIBs and banks with reporting obligations have reduced their overall risk score and some of their individual risk indicators at the end of a calendar year, both in absolute terms and relative to the other banks in the sample. The results also indicate that year-end reductions in capital market activities are a main driver of the observed window-dressing behaviour. JEL Classification: G21, G28, G38

We develop an integrated Early Warning Global Vector Autoregressive (EW-GVAR) model to quantify the costs and benefits of capital-based macroprudential policy measures. Our findings illustrate that capital-based measures are transmitted both via their impact on the banking system's resilience and via indirect macro-financial feedback effects. The feedback effects relate to dampened credit and asset price growth and, depending on how banks move to higher capital ratios, can account for up to a half of the overall effectiveness of capitalbased measures. Moreover, we document significant cross-country spillover effects, especially for measures implemented in larger countries. Overall, our model helps to understand how and through which channels changes in capitalization affect bank lending and the wider economy and can inform policy makers on the optimal calibration and timing of capital-based macroprudential instruments.

We use a quasi-experimental research design to examine the effect of model-based capital regulation introduced under the Basel II agreement on the pro-cyclicality of bank lending and firms' access to funds during a recession. In response to an exogenous shock to credit risk in the German economy, loans subject to modelbased, time-varying capital charges were reduced by 3.5 percent more than loans under the traditional approach to capital regulation. The effect is even stronger when we examine aggregate firm borrowing, suggesting that the pro-cyclical effect of model-based capital charges is not offset by substitution to other banks which use the traditional approach.

We estimate a multivariate early-warning model to assess the usefulness of private credit and other macro-financial variables in predicting banking sector vulnerabilities. Using data for 23 European countries, we find that global variables and in particular global credit growth are strong predictors of domestic vulnerabilities. Moreover, domestic credit variables also have high predictive power, but should be complemented by other macro-financial indicators like house price growth and banking sector capitalization that play a salient role in predicting vulnerabilities. Our findings can inform decisions on the activation of macroprudential policy measures and suggest that policy makers should take a broad approach in the analytical models that support risk identification and calibration of tools. JEL Classification: G01, G21, G28

Over the recent decades researchers in academia and central banks have developed early warning systems (EWS) designed to warn policy makers of potential future economic and financial crises. These EWS are based on diverse approaches and empirical models. In this paper we compare the performance of nine distinct models for predicting banking crises resulting from the work of the Macroprudential Research Network (MaRs) initiated by the European System of Central Banks. In order to ensure comparability, all models use the same database of crises created by MaRs and comparable sets of potential early warning indicators. We evaluate the models’ relative usefulness by comparing the ratios of false alarms and missed crises and discuss implications for pratical use and future research. We find that multivariate models, in their many appearances, have great potential added value over simple signalling models. One of the main policy recommendations coming from this exercise is that policy makers can benefit from taking a broad methodological approach when they develop models to set macro-prudential instruments.