ASCI JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 29(1).
39-48
Copyright ? 1999 - Administrative Staff College of India.
R. VAIDYANATHAN
Asset-liability management: Issues and trends in Indian context
This paper discusses issues in asset-liability management and elaborates on various cat-
egories of risk that require to be managed. It examines strategies for asset-liability man-
agement from the asset side as well as the liability side, particularly in the Indian context.
It also discusses the specificity of financial institutions in India and the new information
technology initiatives that beneficially affect asset-liability management. The emerging
contours of conglomerate financial services and their implications for asset-liability man-
agement are also described.
Asset-liability management basically refers to the process by which an
institution manages its balance sheet in order to allow for alternative interest
rate and liquidity scenarios. Banks and other financial institutions provide
services which expose them to various kinds of risks like credit risk, interest
risk, and liquidity risk. Asset liability management is an approach that provides
institutions with protection that makes such risk acceptable. Asset-liability
management models enable institutions to measure and monitor risk, and
provide suitable strategies for their management.
It is therefore appropriate for institutions (banks, finance companies, leasing com-
panies, insurance companies, and others) to focus on asset-liability management when
they face financial risks of different types. Asset-liability management in-cludes not
only a formalization of this understanding, but also a way to quantify and manage
these risks. Further, even in the absence of a formal asset-liability management
program, the understanding of these concepts is of value to an institution as it provides
a truer picture of the risk/reward trade-off in which the institution is engaged (Fabozzi
& Kanishi, 1991),
Asset-liability management is a first step in the long-term strategic planning
pro-cess. Therefore, it can be considered as a planning function for an
intermediate term. In a sense, the various aspects of balance sheet management
deal with plan-ning as well as direction and control of the levels, changes and
mixes of assets, liabilities, and capital.
Earlier phase
In the 1940s and the 1950s, there was an abundance of funds in banks in the form of
demand and savings deposits. Because of the low cost of deposits, banks had to
develop mechanisms by which they could make efficient use of these funds.
Hence, the focus then was mainly on asset management. But as the availability
of low cost funds started to decline, liability management became the focus of
bank management efforts.
40 / ASCI Journal of Management 29(1)
Liability management essentially refers to the practice of buying money through
cumulative deposits, federal funds and commercial paper in order to fund profit-able
loan opportunities. But with an increase in volatility in interest rates and with a severe
recession damaging several economies, banks started to concentrate more on the
management of both sides of the balance sheet.
Categories of risk
Risk in a way can be defined as the chance or the probability of loss or
damage. In the case of banks, these include credit risk, capital risk, market
risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk. These categories of financial risk
require focus, since financial institutions like banks do have complexities and
rapid changes in their operating environments.
Credit risk: The risk of counter party failure in meeting the payment obligation
on the specific date is known as credit risk. Credit risk management is an
important challenge for financial institutions and failure on this front may lead
to failure of banks. The recent failure of many Japanese banks and failure of
savings and loan associations in the 1980s in the USA are important examples,
which provide les-sons for others. It may be noted that the willingness to pay,
which is measured by the character of the counter party, and the ability to pay
need not necessarily go together.
The other important issue is contract enforcement in countries like India. Legal
reforms are very critical in order to have timely contract enforcement. Delays
and loopholes in the legal system significantly affect the ability of the lender to
enforce the contract. The legal system and its processes are notorious for
delays showing scant regard for time and money that is the basis of sound
functioning of the market system. Over two million cases are pending in 18
High Courts alone and more than 200,000 cases are pending in the Supreme
Court for admission, interim relief or final hearing.
This is not the full story. Since thousands of cases are pending in the lower
courts, legal experts suggest that the average time taken by Indian courts for
deciding a civil I case is around 7 to 10 years (Shah, 1998), if not more. The
right of the lessor to repossess the leased asset, in case of default by the lessee
was not very clear until the Bombay High Court ruled (and the Supreme Court
upheld) that the lessor has a right to so repossess (in the case of Twentieth
Century Finance Corporation vs. SLM Maneklal Industries Ltd.).
Hence the required rate of return due to feeble contract enforcement
mechanisms becomes larger in countries like India. Therefore, a good portion
of non-perform-ing assets of commercial banks in India is related to
deficiencies in contract en-forcement mechanisms. Credit risk is also linked to
market risk variables. In a highly volatile interest rate environment, loan
defaults could increase thereby af-fecting credit quality.
The expansion of banking sector was phenomenal during the 1970s and 1980s.
Mobilization of deposits was one of the major objectives of commercial banks.
'
Vaidyanathan: Asset-liability management: Issues and trends in Indian Context /41
To that extent, performance appraisal and incentive system within the banking sector
was more based on deposit mobilization and achievement of deposit targets rather than
on lending practices and credit risk assessment mechanisms.
Hence, it is important that the banks reorient their approach in terms of
reformulating performance appraisal systems, which focus more on lending
practices and credit risk assessments in the changed scenario. Credit rating to
some extent facilitates the understanding of credit risk. But the quality of
financial information provided by corporates leaves much to be desired. In the
case of the unincorporated sector, namely a partnership and proprietorship firm,
the task of credit risk assessment is more complicated because of lack of
reliable and continuous financial information.
Capital risk: One of the sound aspects of the banking practice is the
maintenance of adequate capital on a continuous basis. There are attempts to
bring in global norms in this field in order to bring in commonality and
standardization in international practices. Capital adequacy also focuses on the
weighted average risk of lending and to that extent, banks are in a position to
realign their portfolios between more risky and less risky assets.
Market risk: Market risk is related to the financial condition, which results from
adverse movement in market prices. This will be more pronounced when financial
information has to be provided on a marked-to-market basis since significant fluc-
tuations in asset holdings could adversely affect the balance sheet of banks. In the
Indian context, the problem is accentuated because many financial institutions ac-quire
bonds and hold it till maturity. When there is a significant increase in the term structure
of interest rates, or violent fluctuations in the rate structure, one finds substantial
erosion of the value of the securities held.
Interest rate risk: Interest risk is the change in prices of bonds that could occur
as a result of change: n interest rates. It also considers change in impact on
interest income due to changes in the rate of interest. In other words, price as
well as rein-vestment risks require focus. In so far as the terms for which
interest rates were fixed on deposits differed from those for which they fixed on
assets, banks incurred interest rate risk i.e., they stood to make gains or losses
with every change in the level of interest rates.
As long as changes in rates were predictable both in magnitude and in timing over the
business cycle, interest rate risk was not seen as too serious, but as rates of interest
became more volatile, there was felt need for explicit means of monitoring and
controlling interest gaps. In most OECD countries (Harrington, 1987), the situation was
no different from that which prevailed in domestic banking.
The term to maturity of a bond provides clues to the fluctuations in the price of
the bond since it is fairly well-known that longer maturity bonds have greater
fluctuations for a given change in the interest rates compared to shorter
maturity bonds. In other words commercial banks, which are holding large
proportions of longer maturity bonds, will face more price reduction when the
interest rates go up. Between
42/ ASCI Journal of Management 29(1)
1970s and the early part of 1990s, there has been a substantial change in the
matu-rity structure of bonds held by commercial banks.
During 1961, 34% of the central government securities had a maturity of less
than 5 years and 27% more than 10 years. But in 1991, only 9% of the
securities had a maturity of less than 5 years, while 86% were more than 10
years (Vaidyanathan, 1995). During 1992, when the reform process started and
efforts taken to move away from the administered interest rate mechanism to
market determined rates, financial institutions were affected because longer
maturity instruments have greater fluctuations for a given change in the
interest rate structure. This becomes all the grimmer when interest rates move
up because the prices of the holding come down significantly and in a marked-
to-market situation, severely affect bottomlines of banks.
Another associated issue is related to the coupon rate of the bonds. Throughout the
1970s and 1980s, the government was borrowing from banks using the statutory
obligation route at artificially low interest rates ranging between 4.5% to 8% (The
World Bank, 1995). The smaller the coupon rate of bonds, larger is the fluctuation
associated with a change in interest rate structure. Because of artificially fixed low
coupon rates, commercial banks faced adverse situations when the interest rate
structure was liberalized to align with market rates.
Therefore, the banking industry in India has substantially more issues associated with
interest rate risk, which is due to circumstances outside its control. This poses extra
challenges to the banking sector and to that extent, they have to adopt innovative and
sophisticated techniques to meet some of these challenges. There are certain measures
available to measure interest rate risk. These include
Maturity: Since it takes into account only the timing of the final principal
payment, maturity is considered as an approximate measure of risk and in a
sense does not quantify risk. Longer maturity bonds are generally subject to
more interest rate risk than shorter maturity bonds.
Duration: Is the weighted average time of all cash flows, with weights being the
present values of cash flows. Duration can again be used to determine the sensitivity
of prices to changes in interest rates. It represents the percentage
. change in value in response to changes in interest rates.
Dollar duration: Represents the actual dollar change in the market value of a
holding of the bond in response to a percentage change in rates.
Convexity: Because of a change in market rates and because of passage of
time, duration may not remain constant. With each successive basis point
movement downward, bond prices increase at an increasing rate. Similarly if
rates increase, the rate of decline of bond prices declines. This property is
called convexity.
In the Indian context, banks in the past were primarily concerned about adhering to
statutory liquidity ratio norms and to that extent they were acquiring government
securities and holding it till maturity. But in the changed situation, namely moving
away from administered interest rate structure to market determined rates, it becomes
important for banks to equip themselves with some of these techniques, in order to
immunize banks against interest rate risk.
Vaidyanathan: Asset-liability management: Issues and trends in Indian Context /43
Liquidity risk: Affects many Indian institutions. It is the potential inability to generate
adequate cash to cope with a decline in deposits or increase in assets. To a large extent,
it is an outcome of the mismatch in the maturity patterns of assets and liabilities. First,
the proportion of central government securities with longer maturities in the Indian
bond market, significantly increasing during the 1970s and 1980s, affected the banking
system because longer maturity securities have greater vola tility for a given change in
interest rate structure.
This problem gets accentuated in the context of change in the main liability
struc-ture of the banks, namely the maturity period for term deposits. For
instance in 1986, nearly 50% of term deposits had a maturity period of more
than 5 years and only 20%, less than 2 years for all commercial banks. But in
1992, only 17% of term deposits were more than 5 years whereas 38% were
less than 2 years (Vaidyanathan, 1995).
In such a situation, we find banks facing significant problems in terms of mismatch
between average life of bonds and maturity pattern of term deposits. The Ministry of
Finance as well as the RBI have taken steps to reduce the average maturity period of
bonds held by commercial banks in the last few years. In other words, newer
instruments are being floated with shorter maturities accompanied by roll over of
earlier instruments with shorter maturities.
In order to meet short-term liability payments, institutions have to maintain certain
levels of cash at a!' points of time. Thus managing cash flows becomes crucial.
Institutions could access low cost funding or could have assets that have sufficient
short-term cash flows. Hence, banking institutions need to strike a reasonable trade off
between being excessively liquid and relatively illiquid.
The recent failure of many non-banking financial companies can be ascribed to
mismatch between asset-liability maturities, since many of them have invested in real
estate type of assets with short-term borrowings. Particularly in a declining real estate
market, it becomes difficult for non-banking financial companies to exit and meet
obligations of lenders. In such a context, liquidity becomes a much more significant
variable even at the cost of forgoing some profitability.
Risk measurement techniques
There are various techniques for measuring exposure of banks to interest rate
risks:
Gap analysis model: Measures the direction and extent of asset-liability
mismatch through either funding or maturity gap. It is computed for assets and
liabilities of differing maturities and is calculated for a set time horizon. This
model looks at the repricing gap that exists between the interest revenue earned
9n the bank's assets and the interest paid on its liabilities over a particular period
of time (Saunders,1997). It highlights the net interest income exposure of the
bank, to changes in interest rates in different maturity buckets.
Repricing gaps are calculated for assets and liabilities of differing maturities. A
positive gap indicates that assets get repriced before liabilities, whereas, a
negative
44/ ASCI Journal of Management 29(1)
gap indicates that liabilities get repriced before assets. The bank looks at the
rate sensitivity (the time the bank manager will have to wait in order to change
the posted rates on any asset or liability) of each asset and liability on the
balance sheet. The general formula that is used is as follows:
NIIi = R i (GAPi)
While NII is the net interest income, R refers to the interest rates impacting
assets and liabilities in the relevant maturity bucket and GAP refers to the
differences between the book value of the rate sensitive assets and the rate
sensitive liabilities. Thus when there is a change in the interest rate, one can
easily identify the impact of the change on the net interest income of the bank.
Interest rate changes have a market value effect. The basic weakness with this
model is that this method takes into account only the book value of assets and
liabilities and hence ignores their market value. This method therefore is only a
partial measure of the true interest rate exposure of a bank.
Duration model: Duration is an important measure of the interest rate
sensitivity of assets and liabilities as it takes into account the time of arrival of
cash flows and the maturity of assets and liabilities. It is the weighted average
time to maturity of all the preset values of cash flows. Duration basic -ally
refers to the average life of the asset or the liability.
DP p = D ( dR /1+R)
The above equation describes the percentage fall in price of the bond for a
given increase in the required interest rates or yields. The larger the value of the
duration, the more sensitive is the price of that asset or liability to changes in
interest rates. As per the above equation, the bank will be immunized from
interest rate risk if the duration gap between assets and the liabilities is zero.
The duration model has one important benefit. It uses the market value of assets
and liabilities.
Value at Risk: Refers to the maximum expected loss that a bank can suffer over a target
horizon, given a certain confidence interval. It enables the calculation of market risk of
a portfolio for which no historical data exists. It enables one to calculate the net worth
of the organization at any particular point of time so that it is possible to focus on long-
term risk implications of decisions that have already been taken or that are going to be
taken. It is used extensively for measuring the market risk of a portfolio of assets
and/or liabilities.
Simulation: Simulation models help to introduce a dynamic element in the analy-sis of
interest rate risk. Gap analysis and duration analysis as stand-alone too15 for asset-
liability management suffer from their inability to move beyond the static analysis of
current interest rate risk exposures. Basically simulation models utilize computer power
to provide what if scenarios, for example: What if:
.
.
The absolute level of interest rates shift
Vaidyanathan: Asset-liability management: Issues and trends in Indian Context /45
. There are nonparallel yield curve changes
. Marketing plans are under-or-over achieved
. Margins achieved in the past are not sustained/improved
. Bad debt and prepayment levels change in different interest rate scenarios
. There are changes in the funding mix e.g.: an increasing reliance on short term funds for
balance sheet growth....
This dynamic capability adds value to the traditional methods and improves the
information available to management in terms of:
. Accurate evaluation of current exposures of asset and liability portfolios to interest rate
risk.
. Changes in multiple target variables such as net interest income, capital adequacy, and
liquidity
. Future gaps.
It is possible that the simulation model due to the nature of massive paper outputs may
prevent us from seeing wood for the tree. In such a situation, it is extremely important
to combine technical expertise with an understanding of issues in the organization.
There are certain requirements for a simulation model to succeed. These pertain to
accuracy of data and reliability of the assumptions made. In other words, one should be
in a position to look at alternatives pertaining to prices, growth rates, reinvestments,
etc., under various interest rate scenarios. This could be difficult and sometimes
contentious.
It is also to be noted that managers may not want to document their assumptions
and data is not easily available for differential impacts of interest rates on
several variables. Hence, simulation models need to be used with caution
particularly in the Indian situation. Last but not the least, the use of simulation
models calls for commitment of substantial amount of time and resources. If we
cannot afford the cost or, more importantly the time involved in simulation
modeling, it makes sense to stick to simpler types of analysis.
Asset-liability management strategies for correcting mismatch
The strategies that can be employed for correcting the mismatch in terms of
D(A) > D(L) can be either liability or asset driven. Asset driven strategies for
correcting the mismatch focus on shortening the duration of the asset portfolio.
The com-monly employed asset based financing strategy is securitization.
Typically the long-term asset portfolios like the lease and hire purchase
portfolios are securitized; and the resulting proceeds are either redeployed in
short term assets or utilized for repaying short-term liabilities.
Liability driven strategies basically focus on lengthening the maturity profiles of
liabilities. Such strategies can include for instance issue of external equity in the form
of additional equity shares or compulsorily convertible preference shares (which can
also help in augmenting the Tier I capital of finance companies), issue of redeemable
preference shares, subordinated debt instruments, debentures and
46 / ASCI Journal of Management 29(1)
accessing long term debt like bank borrowings and term loans. Strategies to be
employed for correcting a mismatch in the form of D(A) < D(L) (which will be
necessary if interest rates are expected to decline) will be the reverse of the
strate-gies discussed above.
Asset driven strategies focus on lengthening the maturity profile of assets by
the deployment of available lendable resources in long-term assets such as
lease and hire purchase. Liability driven strategies focus on shortening the
maturity profile of liabilities, which can include, liquidating bank borrowings
which are primarily in the form of cash credit (and hence amenable for
immediate liquidation), using the prepayment options (if any embedded in the
term loans); and the call options, if any embedded in bonds issued by the
company; and raising short-term borrowings (e.g.: fixed deposits with a tenor
of one year) to repay long-term borrowings.
Emerging issues in the Indian context
With the onset of liberalization, Indian banks are now more exposed to uncertainty and
to global competition. This makes it imperative to have proper asset-liability
management systems in place. The following points bring out the reasons as to why
asset-liability management is necessary in the Indian context:
. In the context of a bank, asset-liability management refers to the process of managing
the net interest margin (NIM) within a given level of risk.
NIM = Net Interest Income/Average Earning Assets = NII/AEA
Since NIl equals interest income minus interest expenses, Sinkey (1992)
suggests that NIM can be viewed as the spread on earning assets and uses the
term spread management. As the basic objective of banks is to maximize
income while reducing their exposure to risk, efficient management of net
interest margin becomes essential.
. Several banks have inadequate and inefficient management systems that have to be altered so
as to ensure that the banks are sufficiently liquid.
. Indian banks are now more exposed to the vagaries of the international markets, than
ever before because of the removal of restrictions, especially with respect to forex
transactions. Asset-liability management becomes essential as it enables the bank to
maintain its exposure to foreign currency fluctuations given the level of risk it can handle.
. An increasing proportion of investments by banks is being recorded on a marked-to-
market basis and as such large portion of the investment portfolio is exposed to market
risks. Countering the adverse impact of these changes is possible only through efficient
asset-liability management techniques.
. As the focus on net interest margin has increased over the years, there is an increasing
possibility that the risk arising out of exposure to interest rate volatility will be built into the
capital adequacy norms specified by the regulatory authorities. This, in turn will require
efficient asset-liability management practices.
Information technology and asset-liability management in the Indian
context
Many of the new private sector banks and some of the non-banking financial
companies have gone in for complete computerization of their branch network
and
Vaidyanathan: Asset-liability management: Issues and trends in Indian Context /47
have also integrated their treasury, forex, and lending segments. The
information technology initiatives of these institutions provide significant
advantage to them in asset-liability management since it facilitates faster flow
of information, which is accurate and reliable. It also helps in terms of quicker
decision-making from the central office since branches are networked and
accounts are considered as belonging to the bank rather than a branch.
The electronic fund transfer system as well as demat holding of securities also
significantly alters mechanisms of implementing asset-liability management be-cause
trading, transaction, and holding costs get reduced. Simulation models are relatively
easier to consider in the context of networking and also computing powers. The open
architecture, which is evolving in the financial system, facilitates cross-bank initiatives
in asset-liability management to reduce aggregate unit cost. This would prove as a
reliable risk reduction mechanism.
In other words, the boundaries of asset-liability management architecture itself
is changing because of substantial changes brought about by information
technology, and to that extent the operations managers are provided with
multiple possibilities which were not earlier available in the context of large
numbers of branch networks and associated problems of information collection,
storage, and retrieval.
In the Indian context, asset-liability management refers to the management of
de-posits, credit, investments, borrowing, forex reserves and capital, keeping in
mind the capital adequacy norms laid down by the regulatory authorities.
Information technology can facilitate decisions on the following issues:
. Estimating the main sources of funds like core deposits, certificates of deposits, and call
borrowings.
. Reducing the gap between rate sensitive assets and rate sensitive liabilities, given a certain
level of risk.
. Reducing the maturity mismatch so as to avoid liquidity problems.
. Managing funds with respect to crucial factors like size and duration.
Conclusion
It is important to note that the conglomerate approach to financial institutions,
which is increasingly becoming popular in the developed markets, could also
get replicated in Indian situations. This implies that the distinction between
commer-cial banks and term lending institutions could become blurred. It is
also possible that the same institution involves itself in short-term and long-
term lending-bor-rowing activities, as well as other activities like mutual funds,
insurance and pen-sion funds.
In such a situation, the strategy for asset-liability management becomes more
challenging because one has to adopt a modular approach in terms of meeting asset
liability management requirements of different divisions and product lines. But it also
provides opportunities for diversification across activities that could facilitate risk
management on an enhanced footing. In other words, in the Indian context, the
challenge could arise from say the merger of SBI, IDBI, and LIC.
48 / ASCI Journal of Management 29{l)
Such a scenario need not be considered extremely hypothetical because
combined and stronger balance sheets provide much greater access to global
funds. It also enhances the capability of institutions to significantly alter their
risk profiles at short notice because of the flexibility afforded by the
characteristics of products of different divisions. This also requires significant
managerial competence in order to have a conglomerate view of such
organizations and prepare it for the challenges of the coming decade.
As long as the artificial barriers between different financial institutions exist, asset
liability management is narrowly focussed and many a time not in a position to achieve
the desired objectives. This is because of the fact that the institutional arrangements are
mainly due to historical reasons of convenience and a perceived static picture of the
operating world. The integration of different financial markets, instruments and
institutions provide greater opportunities for emerging markets like India to aim for
higher return in the context of minimizing risk.
Hence, it maybe appropriate to think in terms of reorienting our institutional
structures (removing the distinctions between commercial banks, non-banking
financial companies, and term lending institutions to start with) and having a
conglomerate regulatory framework for monitoring capital adequacy, liquidity.
solvency, marketability, etc. This will go a long way in ironing out the
mismatches between the assets and the liabilities, rather than narrowly focussed
asset-liability management techniques for individual banks.
Author
R. Vaidyanathan is Professor of Finance, Indian Institute of Management,
Bangalore.
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