Talk:List of bank stress tests

Deletion successfully opposed

Bank stress tests are a critical response to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008. Due to the highly interconnected nature of the global financial system if a very large bank fails in one country it can have disastrous consequences well beyond its borders. Stress testing banks helps regulators determine if each institution can endure a reasonable amount of stress.

Each regulator, and each large bank subjected to these stress test spend millions planning and conducting these tests. The testing methodology was relatively nascent in 2009 when they began and has expanded rapidly. Likewise the number of banks subject to stress testing is likely to increase substantially.

Each year's test is "a story in itself" as the state of the art in stress testing undergoes rapid evolution. Likewise the safety and stability of the individual banks tested is quite dynamic.

Wikipedia articles were written in 2009 (US) and 2010 and 2011 in the (EU) covering stress test tests. Other years are stub articles that ultimately point to the test program, results. If there is objection to short stub articles this page could point to relevant URLs of detailed results and those might be eliminated. For example:

• 2011 Comprehensive Capital Assessment Review (CCAR)
• 2012 Comprehensive Capital Assessment Review (CCAR)
• 2013 Comprehensive Capital Assessment Review (CCAR)

My personal preference would be for that not to happen. For instance, it's good to have the stub 2013 Comprehensive Capital Assessment Review (CCAR) in place right now as the 2013 test program is already published, and results should appear in March. If authors are motivated to write an article on it, the stub helps keep things organized. Likewise the stub offers a talk page if there are less formal comments readers want to make.

I'm not aware if Asian regulators forced Asian banks to stress test and what the results were?

While this topic is primarily financial I can assure more academically oriented Wikipedians that there are an immense number of Phds working on bank stress tests around the world, from a variety of disciplines including statistics, mathematical modeling, engineering, economics, etc. The challenge is huge and indeed global. Also, as stress testing migrates to the next tiers down in bank size the popularity of the topic may become more even more widespread. Rick (talk) 16:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Not a Disambiguation Page, a stub Broad-Concept Article

This page started out as a Disambiguation page however BOTs found many incoming links so that fell into a questionable area. Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links When a reader came in focused on the topic "Bank Stress Tests" it was assumed they most likely wanted detailed information on a bank they were interested in, and likely geographically close to. That was seen as a possible "disambiguation" task. However, a stub class, Broad-concept article also works great. See: Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Broad-concept articles.

In writing articles on these subjects, it is useful to directly address the scope of the term, and the history of how the concept has developed. Each of the examples of the concept or type of thing should be included at some point in the article, possibly in a list, so that no information is lost from what would have been presented in the disambiguation page format. Consider using Wikipedia:SUMMARY style to incorporate information about the subtopics into the main article.

Scope: Bank Stress Tests, must be related to a bank, not an all inclusive article about every technical aspect of stress testing in general. Main focus is large banks, and stress testing mandated by local regulators to help mitigate overall Systemic risk.

History: While risk management techniques, including stress testing, were well established at banks prior to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 they received exponentially more attention directly after. Stress tests became a topic of rather intense, unified, global interest and research. The results of early stress testing has already engendered ample discussion between large banks and regulators, and between regulators from one country or region with another. The concept "the devil is in the details" is clearly in play. Regulating bank risk taking activities directly impacts near and far term profitability. Global banks wield enormous financial resources, including substantial resource allocations to proactively influencing regulatory and political affairs.

Cross Reference: The major cross reference in this article is to the annual stress testing programs applied by each country, or region, to banks under their jurisdiction. Over time the evolutionary history may be of interest. Regulators will innovate and global size banks will respond.

SUMMARY style: Each of the annual testing programs, with program design and program results should remain a separate article. In many instances that article will include a detailed table of which banks participated, various results, etc. Rolling all those detailed tests into this Broad-Concept Article is not a good idea as the length will become unwieldy. 10 years x 3 regions x 10-20 banks per region .... expanding to 50-100 banks in each region as the program unfolds...clearly too much for a broad scope, entry level, overview article.

Other: A simple, general discussion of bank stress tests may be appropriate, including some historical aspects. Some thought-starters for a historical section:

• was Value at Risk (VaR) the precursor to stress testing?
  • VaR was a fairly new mathematical technique that was wholesale adopted by regulators, perhaps prematurely and naively? Was VaR misunderstood and was it "regulated in" allowing banks to operate with less Net Capital than a better informed approach might have taken? When Lehman blew up, etc, was VaR based Net Capital, sanctioned and "blessed" by the regulators, sufficient to protect against mortgage fraud and the resulting cascading failures?
• are the early stress test programs well informed by VaR's shortcomings?
• can systemic risk actually be mitigated with bank stress testing?
• are regulators stress test scenarios sufficiently adverse to adequately test for systemic risk, and its consequences? For example, do the current round stress tests introduce testing scenarios on a level with wholesale fraud and corruption in mortgage lending, fraud in credit ratings, fraud in LIBOR and other key rates, all occurring simultaneously?
• Do the stress tests adequately model fear and contagion and interconnectedness?
• Are current stress testing programs oddly similar to the history of VaR? Perhaps too much reliance on complex, not completely understood, early stage risk technology, and then '"driving the car by looking only in the rear view mirror"?

Rick (talk) 16:38, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I suspect it will be easy to find books and articles to use as references for all of these points and criticisms. Please have at it. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:09, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge?

{{mergeto|Stress test (financial)|date=February 2013}}

• oppose merge page started out as a redirect, went to disamig, went to a stub broad topic article with no one to write it out, and is really just a list. As such it should remain freestanding. Rick (talk) 19:41, 22 February 2013 (UTC)