Day: November 16, 2017

More questions than answers

Michael Reddell Financial stabilty, Reserve Bank, Uncategorized

When a Reserve Bank press release turned up yesterday afternoon, announcing that the Reserve Bank had temporarily increased the minimum capital requirements for Westpac’s New Zealand subsidiary, after breaches had been discovered in Westpac’s compliance with its conditions of registration, my initial reaction was a slightly flippant one.  It must, I thought, be nice for the Reserve Bank to be able to impose penalties when banks don’t do as they should, but it is a shame that there is no effective penalty operating in reverse.   When the Reserve Bank misses its inflation target, imposes new controls with threadbare justification, flouts the principles of the Official Information Act, allows OCR decisions to leak, or attempts to silence a leading critic what happens?  Well, nothing really.

But as I reflected on the Reserve Bank’s statement and the Westpac New Zealand, both reproduced here, I became increasingly uneasy.

This is what we know from the Reserve Bank

Westpac New Zealand Limited (Westpac) has had its minimum regulatory capital requirements increased after it failed to comply with regulatory obligations relating to its status as an internal models bank.

Internal models banks are accredited by the Reserve Bank to use approved risk models to calculate how much regulatory capital they need to hold. Westpac used a number of models that had not been approved by the Reserve Bank, and materially failed to meet requirements around model governance, processes and documentation.

The Reserve Bank required Westpac to commission an independent report into its compliance with internal models regulatory requirements. The report found that Westpac:
·currently operates 17 (out of 35) unapproved capital models;
·has used 21 (out of 32) additional unapproved capital models since it was accredited as an internal models bank in 2008; and
·failed to put in place the systems and controls an internal models bank is required to have under its conditions of registration.

The Reserve Bank has decided that Westpac’s conditions of registration should be amended to increase its minimum capital levels until the shortcomings and
non-compliance identified in the independent report have been remedied.  …..

In addition, the Reserve Bank has accepted an undertaking by Westpac to maintain its total capital ratio above 15.1 percent until all existing issues have been resolved.  The Reserve Bank has given Westpac 18 months to satisfy the Reserve Bank that it has sufficiently addressed those issues or it risks losing accreditation to operate as an internal models bank.

There is nothing additional in the Westpac statement, but they don’t appear to dispute either the Reserve Bank’s findings or its response.

There are a few things to clear away.  First, the temporary increase in the minimum capital requirements for Westpac New Zealand does not constitute a financial penalty at all.    Arguably that might be true even if it increased the actual amount of capital Westpac had to hold (Modigliani-Miller and all that), but this measure does not do that.    The Reserve Bank statement tells us that as 30 September, Westpac’s total capital ratio was 16.1 per cent.

That doesn’t mean it is no penalty at all.   I’m sure there has been a great deal of very uncomfortable anguishing in recent months both among Westpac New Zealand directors and senior management, and at head office (and the main board) in Sydney.  APRA is likely to have taken a very dim view of this sort of mismanagement by an Australian bank’s subsidiary.  And, of course, a lot of scarce staff time is now going to have be devoted to sorting these issues out over the next 18 months.  That resource has an opportunity cost –  other things those people could have been used for, which might have boosted the bank’s earnings.

But what I found more striking was how little either the Reserve Bank or Westpac statements said about breaches of conditions of registration which appear to go to the heart of our system of prudential supervision.

There is, for example, nothing at all in the Westpac statement about how these errors happened (use of numerous unathorised models, dating back to 2008), and not much contrition either.  The closest they come is this

WNZL is disappointed not to have met the RBNZ’s requirements in this area.

And our system of banking supervision is supposed to, at least in principle and in law, rely very heavily on attestations from each individual director that the bank they are directors of is fully in compliance with the conditions of registration (which includes provisions around calculation of minimum capital requirements and associated models).  But there is no apology from the directors, and no sign that any director has lost his or her job.   Potential heavy civil and criminal penalties –  including potential imprisonment –  are supposed to sufficiently focus the attention of directors that depositors and other creditors can rely on the information banks publish.  Westpac’s clearly haven’t been able to rely on their disclosure statements for almost a decade.  And yet there is no specific mention of the directors in the Reserve Bank’s statement either.

There is also nothing in either statement (Reserve Bank or Westpac) about the quantitative significance of the errors.   The Reserve Bank tells us that they accept that Westpac did not deliberately set out to reduce its regulatory capital, but intent and effect are two different things.    These problems appear to have been known about for more than a year –  Westpac tells us they first reported them in their September 2016 Disclosure Statement.  But was the effect, over the years since 2008, to reduce the amount of capital Westpac had to hold relative to what it would have been if they’d been using Reserve Bank approved models?  Or does no one –  at the Reserve Bank or Westpac –  yet know?   When the issues are sorted out will Westpac New Zealand be required to restate its capital ratios for the whole period since 2008?

The Reserve Bank’s own processes also seem lax at best.    And this comes closer to home for me, since I sat for a long time on the Bank’s internal Financial System Oversight committee.  The precise mandate of that committee was never fully clear –  in a sense, it was to provide advice on whatever issues the Governor wanted advice on –  and we didn’t typically do individual bank issues at this level of detail.  But that Committee provided advice to the then Governor to go forward with Basle II and, in particular (back in 2008), to allow the big banks to use internal-models based approaches to calculating regulatory capital requirements.    I don’t recall if anyone ever asked how we –  the Reserve Bank –  could be confident, on an ongoing basis, that an internal-models bank was actually using approved models.  But had anyone done so, I’m pretty sure the answer would have been along the lines of “director attestations” and the stiff potential civil and criminal penalties directors could face for what are, after all, strict liability offences (directors don’t have to be shown to have intended to mislead –  it is enough that their statements were subsequently found to be false.)

For a long time the concern was that any questions we (the Bank) asked of bank management would weaken the incentive on directors to get things right –  they might, after all, claim they had relied on us.   But that mentality had been changing in the last decade –  eg the Reserve Bank started collecting private information that creditors don’t have access to.     But where were the questions around Westpac’s models?  After all, it wasn’t a single model where someone overloooked getting Reserve Bank sign-off, but roughly half of all the models, stretching back years.

If there is nothing in the Reserve Bank statement about steps the Bank may have taken to improve its own monitoring and recordkeeping (given that they had to grant approval, how did they not know that so many models were being used and had had no approval?), there is also nothing about any steps they may have taken to assure themselves that there are not similar problems in any of the other IRB banks.   Have they even asked the question?  Surely, one would think, but mightn’t we expect to be told?

As I noted, there was no mention of the directors in the Reserve Bank statement.  But did the Reserve Bank consider taking prosecutions against Westpac’s directors, who signed false disclosure statements over the years from 2008 to 2016?  If not, why not?  If the directors believed (as presumably they did) that the statements they were signed were correct, did they have reasonable grounds for that belief?  What procedures or inquiries had they instituted over eight years that (a) they had confidence in, and (b) still proved wrong?  The Reserve Bank insists on independent directors: those on the Westpac NZ board look quite impressive, but what were they doing all those years?

If the Reserve Bank has lost confidence in a system of rather condign punishment of directors, perhaps it should tell us so, and seek legislative changes.  But if it really still believes that director attestations have a central role in the framework, surely this is as good an episode, and time, to make an example of someone as there is ever likely to be?  After all, it was about a core aspect of the regulatory framework (capital requirements), and comes at times when there are no jitters around the health of the financial system.  If there is no penalty for directors, no doubt directors of other banks will take note.

And then there is the question of the other (apparent) breaches of the conditions of registration. I don’t make a habit of reading Disclosure Statements (and don’t bank with Westpac anyway –  although, come to think of it, the Reserve Bank Superannuation scheme, that the “acting Governor” is a trustee of, does).  But I had a quick look at the latest Westpac statement.  On page 2, there is half page of disclosures of things Westpac NZ is not compliant with.  Several appear to be dealt with by yesterday’s announcement, but another five don’t.   Perhaps they are all pretty small matters –  they look that way to this lay reader – but banks are supposed to be fully compliant.   It is the law.

From the Reserve Bank’s side, the press statement went out in the name of Deputy Governor (and new Head of Financial Stability) Geoff Bascand.  But he has been in the role for less than two months now.  By contrast, “acting Governor” Grant Spencer was head of financial stability from 2007 to 2017, spanning the entire period of the use of internal models, and one of his direct reports, the head of prudential supervision, has also been in his role that entire time.    One would hope that the Reserve Bank’s Board is now asking some pretty serious questions about just what went on, about how the Reserve Bank has handled these issues over the last decade, and about how much confidence New Zealanders can have in an avowedly hands-off system.

Most probably, the empirical significance of this protracted breach of the rules will prove to have been small.  For that small mercy, we should of course be grateful.  But it is also small comfort because the fact that such breaches could go on for so long –  and the statements aren’t even clear how they came to light – leaves one wondering about what other gaps we (or the Reserve Bank, or Westpac or other IRB banks) might not yet know about.  Often enough, such problems only come to light when it is too late.   In many other central banks and regulatory agencies, if they hear about this episiode, there will be tut-tutting along the lines of “well, that is what you get when you don’t have on-site supervision of banks”.  Personally I wouldn’t want to see New Zealand go that way, but my confidence in our approach has taken a blow in the last 24 hours.

The Reserve Bank has a review of capital requirements underway at present.  I hope final decisions are not going to be made before a new Governor is in place.   There is plenty of unease around the use of internal-models for calculating capital requirements –  especially for rather vanilla banks such as those operating here.  Personally, I’d be comfortable moving away from that system, back to a standardised model for calculating capital (which would, among other things, put Kiwibank –  somewhat put upon by the Reserve Bank – and TSB on the same footing as the large banks).  But, for now, the law is the law, and needs to be seen to be enforced.  A breach of this sort, with little serious direct penalty, risks undermining confidence in our system.

And, of course, there is the small matter of openness.  Not every aspect of the Reserve Bank’s dealing with an individual bank can be published, but there are a lot of questions –  including about the Reserve Bank itself –  to which we really should be entitled to more answers than the Bank has yet given us.

I hope some journalists are willing to pursue the matter further.  Questions could be directed to David McLean, the well-regarded Westpac NZ CEO, to the Board members past and present (especially the independents), perhaps to the parent bank in Sydney, and –  of course –  to Grant Spencer and Geoff Bascand –  if not before then at their next (financial stability) press conference, which is now only a couple of weeks away.

 

 

 

Towards a more open central bank

Michael Reddell Reserve Bank Act reforms, Transparency

Earlier in the week I wrote a post making the case for reform of the Reserve Bank to be done in such in a way that encourages a much more open central bank, at least in its monetary policy dimensions (there are similar, but different, issues around the other areas of the Bank’s responsibilities).     That post was prompted by the public efforts of the “acting Governor” and his deputy (and acknowledged candidate to be the new Governor) to push back against (a) external members on a new statutory Monetary Policy Committee, and particularly (b) to resist any suggestion of any greater transparency around monetary policy.   As I illustrated in that post, what these officials dislike are systems that work well, and have become established, in places as diverse as the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States.  There is no obvious reason why such an approach could not work well in New Zealand.  And it is not as if the Reserve Bank’s reputation now stands so high that no sane person can envisage any possible room for improvement.

I gather that Spencer and Bascand have since given other interviews restating again their opposition to reforms along these lines.  Whatever their views, it is astonishing that they are carrying on this campaign in public –  even as Bascand has been privately making his case to be the next Governor.  They are bureaucrats, who are paid to operate under the laws, and governance arrangements, that Parliament – acting on behalf of the people –  establishes.  Good statutory provisions governing powerful public agencies involve striking a balance between, on the one hand, drawing on technical expertise, and on the other hand, protecting the interests of citizens against over-mighty bureaucrats advancing their personal interests and/or the interests of their bureau.    Openness and transparency are among those protections.  It is perhaps telling that Bank officials are keen on openness when it allows them to advance their views on this issue –  to protect their patch –  but not when it might prove awkward for them.   Graeme Wheeler was much the same  –  last year willing to go public to tell us that for one controversial OCR decision every single one of his advisers had supported him, but then willing to fight all the way to the Ombudsman to prevent citizens seeing comparable numbers for other decisions (even ones well in the past).  The only principle that seems to guide them on such matters is patch protection and self-interest, precisely the things we need protection against (and the sorts of things that motivated the Official Information Act 35 years ago).

In the purpose provisions of the Official Information Act, the very first item is this

to increase progressively the availability of official information to the people of New Zealand in order—

  • to enable their more effective participation in the making and administration of laws and policies; and
  • to promote the accountability of Ministers of the Crown and officials,—

and thereby to enhance respect for the law and to promote the good government of New Zealand

It is a mindset that has never taken hold at the Reserve Bank.    And thus it was encouraging that in the Speech from the Throne the other day there was an explicit commitment to “improving transparency” around monetary policy.

But after my post the other day, someone got in touch to point out that I’d left out one argument for a more open (monetary policy) central bank.  This correspondent noted that they would have

….added another argument for the value of individual responsibility of committee members: Central banks should stop pretending that the future is knowable, and the economy well understood. Monolithic representation of THE Bank view perpetuates that dangerous myth.

I agree entirely.  To have left it out the other day was an oversight, but it was also something implicit in many of the other arguments and international experiences.

Getting monetary policy roughly right –  the best than anyone can hope for –  is a process of discovery, iteration, revision and so on.  It isn’t a case of one wise person, or even a handful of wise bureaucrats, consulting the secret oracle, and revealing truth to the peasants.   Members of a monetary policy committee –  or the Governor under current NZ law –  get to make the final decision on the OCR, but they know no more about how the economy works, or what might happen next, than any number of other observers.  Indeed, of the four members of Wheeler’s advisory Governing Committe, only one could be considered pretty much fulltime focused on monetary policy (the chief economist).  Of course, they have more analytical resources at their command –  but, in fact, those are our resources, paid for by taxpayers.

When it suits them, the Bank will –  correctly –  emphasise just how much uncertainty there is about the appropriate monetary policy, and how the economy and inflation might unfold in future.  But, if so, what do they have to be afraid of from a much greater degree of openness?

I went back and listened again to the relevant bits of Thursday’s press conference.  Governor-aspirant Geoff Bascand was quite explicit that he thought people needed to focus on the issues that “the Bank” had set out in its Monetary Policy Statement, on “the risks ‘the Bank’ was considering”, on “the substance”.  Bascand didn’t want people focusing on the other issues, or divergences of views, and so on.

It is the same old mindset: we know “the truth”, we know which issues are important and which aren’t, we know how best to balance risks, and so on. And “we” can’t possibly risk letting people know that there might, at times, be genuine differences of view among able people at the Reserve Bank.   But what evidence do they have for such claims?  Either of the degree of knowledge they (implicitly) claim for themselves. or for the level of risk they claim explicitly to worry about.    Instead, life is just easier for bureaucrats if we maintain the secrecy, and continue to channel a monolithic view –  monolithic this time, monolithic next time, monolithic the time after, even though each of those monolithic views may be quite different from each other.

It would bore readers to run through the evidence for how often the Governor’s monolithic view has been wrong (or central banks in other countries have been wrong).  Sometimes one could count him culpable. At other times, things just turned different than most people –  inside or outside the Bank –  reasonably thought likely.  That is the nature of the beast: things are highly uncertain and nothing is gained, no one’s interests (probably not even those of really capable bureaucrats) are advanced by keeping on pretending otherwise.  The evidence to the contrary is there almost every time any central bank sits down and deliberates on monetary policy.  Mostly, it seems as of Spencer, Bascand, and McDermott have settled in a comfortable rut.  It may suit them, but that isn’t a good argument in institutional design.

I noted the other day the Supreme Court offers a good counter-example.   Final appellate decisions are, in some ways, quite like OCR decisions.  They aren’t necessarily “the truth”, but they are final.   Smart lawyers make sophisticated arguments on either side of any particular case.  Smart judges often enough disagree among themselves.  Some decisions end up being made by a 5:0 vote, but many are 3:2 decisions, and the Chief Justice can easily be in a minority.    Court hearings are, typically, open, and decisions – in the affirmative, and dissenting –  are typically published.    Only an idealist would pretend that the decision is “truth” –  the only possible, or sensible, way of reading the facts and relevant statutes.  But that particular panel of judges –  chosen for their character and expertise –  gets to make the final decision.

It isn’t clear why monetary policy should be so different.  It is even more provisional since, although each OCR decision is final, the panel is back every couple of months looking at an only slightly different set of facts, but sometimes reading them in quite different ways.  I’m not suggesting –  at the ludicrous extreme –  broadcasting meetings of a Monetary Policy Committee, but I can see no possible harm – to the public, or to a well-managed Reserve Bank – from shifting to a culture of much more radical openness, suited to the specifics of monetary policy.   Why shouldn’t the relevant background papers be published, even with a bit of a lag?  Doing so would not only gives stakeholders more a sense of the quality of the staff analysis, it would allow outsiders to point to things staff might (being human) have missed.    Why shouldn’t dissenting opinions, carefully crafted, be included in the minutes (much as the appellate judges do)?  And why shouldn’t members of the MPC –  each independent statutory appointees, and accountable as such –  be giving thoughtful speeches, or interviews, outlining how they see the issues around monetary policy, in ways that invite input from outsiders.  Capable people –  the only sort who should hold these roles –  need have nothing to fear from the contest of ideas.  From such exchanges, from such scrutiny, usually better decisions –  still imperfect –  will emerge.  And the public will have a better sense of the limits of what they can expect from any agency in an area so (inevitably) riddled with uncertainty.

Openness can be messy.  There will be mis-steps at times.  But that is nature of a free and open society.    Choreographed uniformity of view should be left to Xi Jinping.  I noticed a day or so ago that Robert Kaplan, head of Dallas Fed, was on the wires observing

“History has shown that normally when we have a substantial overshoot the Fed ultimately needs to take actions to play catch-up,” Kaplan said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Kaplan said he was actively considering “appropriate next steps” when asked if he was willing to consider a rate rise at the upcoming Fed meeting, FT reported.

I’m sure there are plenty of people around the Fed who will disagree with Kaplan’s particular perspective.  But the question for old-school bureaucrats like Spencer and Bascand is what possible harm, to the conduct of monetary policy or the interests of the American people, is done by such openness?  I can’t see any.  I hope the Minister of Finance –  helped by the forthcoming Independent Expert Advisory Panel –  will draw the same sort of conclusion, and ensure that the new legislation is crafted, and key appointments are made, accordingly.