- Bank of Italy has authorised the new internal models to asses the risks and evaluate the capital requirements
- Positive impact on the Core Tier already in 2008
UniCredit is the first Italian bank authorised from Bank of Italy to apply the most advanced approaches for credit and operational risk for the evaluation of capital requirements under Basel 2.
Bank of Italy has given is authorisation in the past days and has agreed it with the German and Austrian supervisory regulators and it is an important arrival point of a long trip in which UniCredit has gradually improved its risk management system.
The advanced methodologies are going to be adopted at the beginning by the Holding Company and by its Italian subsidiaries ( with exclusion of the former Capitalia Group) from HVB and BA-CA and will then extended to the other group companies.
The authorization to apply this new approaches will produce an immediate benefit for a group like UniCredit which is strongly focused on retail and corporate business (80% of the operating profits in 2007 comes from commercial banking activity).
Including Capitalia, which will apply in 2008 the Standardized Approach, and despite the additional capital requirement due to operational risk, Group Core Tier 1 Ratio will improve. Additional capital benefits for Core Tier 1 are also expected in 2008 and 2009 through the roll out of rating models to the other entities of the Group (including former Capitalia legal entities) and through the improvement of credit processes and of the efficiency of data collection and management.
Basel 2 is based on "Three Pillars".
Pillar 1 introduces a capital requirement to face risks related to standard banking and financial activity (credit, counterpart, market). It also requires additional capital to face losses due to operational risk.
Pillar 2 presses banks to follow precise control processes on capital adequacy - present and future- and gives to Bank of Italy the task to evaluate the adequacy and reliability of results and to make opportune remarks.
Pillar 3 requires that the relevant information about capital adequacy, risks and their control and management processes are to be disclosed to the market.
Milan, 4th April 2008
Enquiries:
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