What To Do about Bilateral Credit Limits in the LVTS When a Closure Is Anticipated: Risk versus Liquidity Sharing among LVTS Participants
The authors examine the effect of a trade-off between shared credit risk and liquidity efficiency, among participants in Tranche 2 of the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS T2), on their decisions to leave open, or close, their bilateral credit limits (BCLs) to a participant at risk of imminent closure. The authors' analysis considers a network of three banks, in a settlement system similar to the LVTS T2. Although it is widely believed that closure of one bank is imminent, the exact timing of the closure - during or after the settlement cycle - is uncertain. The other two banks face an "open or close" choice regarding their BCLs to the problem participant. Based on the expected net payoff of each choice, which includes the value of network externalities, the analysis shows that, when the expected credit loss is sufficiently low, an open-BCL pure-strategy Nash equilibrium can exist and can be Pareto efficient. This result dispels the generality of the frequent assertion that participants in the LVTS T2 will close their BCLs to a participant that is subject to imminent closure.
Unanticipated Defaults and Losses in Canada's Large-Value Payments System, Revisited
Recent work at the Bank of Canada studied the impact of default in Canada's large-value payments system, and concluded that participants could readily manage their potential losses (McVanel 2005). In an extension of that work, the authors use a much larger set of daily payments data - with three times as many observations - to examine the simulated losses of private sector participants and the Bank from defaults in the payments system. They also gauge the upper bound of possible losses in the period April 2004 to April 2006. The authors conclude that losses from a participant failure in the large-value payments system are very likely to be small and readily manageable, as in McVanel (2005). For one or two small participants, under some (probably extreme) conditions, losses could be significant, but not solvency threatening. In sum, the risk controls of the large-value payments system allow and encourage participants to keep potential losses manageable.
Clearing and settlement systems and the Bank of Canada
Clearing and settlement systems are essential to the smooth functioning of a modern market-based economy such as Canada's. During the past decade, there have been significant efforts in Canada and abroad to improve electronic clearing and settlement systems that handle payments obligations, either uniquely or in conjunction with transactions related to the purchase and sale of a broad range of financial instruments such as debt, equity, foreign exchange, or derivatives. This article examines some of the risks faced by participants and end-users of these systems and reviews the Bank of Canada's role in relation to these systems. For a number of years, the Bank has been involved informally with major clearing and settlement systems with a view to ensuring that systemic risk is adequately controlled. In July 1996, the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act was proclaimed. This Act formalized the role of the Bank in the oversight of clearing and settlement systems for the purpose of controlling systemic risk. The article provides an overview of the Bank's responsibilities. It also describes certain new powers that the Act made available to the Bank that could be exercised in its dealings with clearing and settlement systems.