Extracting Value from CECL 2
To meet the new for current expected credit losses (CECL) requirements, “you will need a lot of data,” said Thomas Caragher, Senior Product Manager of Financial & Risk Management Solutions at Fiserv, a US provider of financial services technology. Seven to ten years of data is not unreasonable. The payoff to massive data-gathering is that “you will be able to build strategy more effectively if you have information.” But what to do with the reams of data? First, you have to make some sense of it. “Start by correlating the data,” he said. Oil production might be correlated with loan demand […]
Extracting Value from CECL 1
“Turn the pain of compliance into the benefit of strategy,” said Thomas Caragher, Senior Product Manager of Financial & Risk Management Solutions at Fiserv, a US provider of financial services technology. He was speaking about the approaching deadline to implement new guidelines for current expected credit losses (CECL) at a webinar sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals on April 11, 2018. CECL is the new impairment standard for credit impairment under the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Since it affects accounting, the effect of CECL will be felt “in department stores, cell phone companies, municipalities”—throughout the U.S. The purpose of business intelligence is […]
Behavioral Analytics 2
Industry leaders in the field of behavioral analysis (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon – FAMGA, as some call them) are “decision architects,” said Joe Mattey, Vice President of Enterprise Risk Analytics, and Chief Risk Officer at USAA. Typically a FAMGA product designer will put together a solution, such as a screen dialog, and fine-tune it over the course of many randomized, controlled trials, to see if the proposed solution gets the desired result—or whether some components need to be changed. In this way, behavioral analysis is looking not just at a decision outcome, it is looking at how that […]
Myths of CECL
The time for proper accounting of credit impairment is running out. How prepared is your team? Do you even know what the biggest concern of the auditors will be? This was the call to action voiced by Tom Caragher, Senior Product Manager of Risk and Performance at Fiserv, a US provider of financial services technology on October 26, 2017. He spoke about implementation of current expected credit losses (CECL) at a webinar sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. (Note that CECL is the impairment standard under Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).) “When it comes to CECL, there are many […]
Clash of Titans
In the wake of the financial crisis, the two Titans that create accounting standards tried to hammer out agreement over how to account for impairment of loans. These bodies are the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). “FASB and IASB share the same goal but unfortunately were not able to agree on the same standard,” said Emil Lopez, Director of Risk Measurement at Moody’s Analytics. FASB calls their impairment standard “current expected credit losses” (CECL) whereas IASB deals with impairment and expected losses in their International Financial Reporting Standards as IFRS 9. Lopez was […]
Move Beyond Spreadsheets
Is your firm ready? Financial institutions are seeking answers that will help them plan a roadmap for implementation of the new current expected credit losses (CECL) standard issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). “The runway looks long but firms need to start to prepare now,” said Anna Krayn, Team Lead for Impairment, Capital Planning and Stress Testing at Moody’s Analytics. She was the second of three panellists at the webinar “The Long Road to CECL” sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals on September 8, 2016. “Now is the time to educate, organize and govern, quantify, and […]
Long Road, Many Challenges
Nothing like a financial crisis to show the rough spots in estimation of losses. “Credit losses weren’t being recognized on a timely basis,” and the impairment accounting models were complex and varied widely, according to Kevin Guckian, Partner, National Professional Practice at Ernst &Young. He was the first of three panellists at the webinar “The Long Road to CECL” sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals on September 8, 2016. “FASB’s final standard should accelerate recognition of credit losses,” Guckian noted, referring to the current expected credit losses (CECL) standard newly adopted by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. He […]
Avoid Jekyll and Hyde
Accurate price determination for commodities means that data must be gathered, processed and analyzed. What, then, are current best practices for data management? “Organizations are beginning to recognize their current solutions are no longer meeting current needs,” said Michal Peliwo, Vice President of Business Solutions at ZE PowerGroup. He was the third and final speaker at a webinar on August 24, 2016, sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals, titled “The Price is Right? Strategies for Market Discovery & Optimum Pricing Challenges.” Peliwo described the fragmented world of data management as it exists at most companies. “MS Excel is […]
Optimum Price a Moving Target
How was risk-taking originally priced, and has this changed over time? Centuries ago, mercantile economies used to pool risk for the trading ships that were sent out. Over time, this “big chunk risk” has given way to increasingly more precise ways of determining risk, and is now down to individual financial transactions. “Pricing is the centre of gravity of this operation,” said Robin Bloor, Chief Analyst at The Bloor Group. “For every product theoretically there is an optimum price.” Beginning with this historical comparison, he was the first of three speakers at a webinar on August 24, 2016, sponsored by […]
Data Science 2. The Roadmap
“The core concept for data science is hypothesis testing,” said Nima Safaian, team lead for Trading Analytics at Cenovus Energy. The data scientist must identify trends, generate hypotheses, and test, test test. The scientist’s bent toward hypothesis testing should be even stronger than their math skills. Safaian was speaking at the Data Science webinar on August 2, 2016, sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). “Attitude is everything,” Safaian said. “Think like a startup. Have an agile mindset,” he urged, referring to the books The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and The Lean Enterprise by Humble, Molesky, and […]