Commercial Banking And Financial Analysis

Evaluation of Financial Risk

Discuss about the Commercial Banking and Financial Analysis.

Relative earnings can be measured by the price- earnings ratio of the organizational securities related to the market index. However, the performance evaluation for the relative earnings can be done by considering the income of the organization as well as the earnings per share during the accounting year (Kothari, Mizik & Roychowdhury, 2015). In the present situation, earnings of Keystone National Bank along with the peers have been compared for the years 1989 and 1990. Considering the financial statements, it has been noted that the income from interest of the bank during the year 1989 was $39.35 million, which was 10.89% while the income of the peers during the same year was 10.62%. On the contrary, the interest income of the bank as well as the peers declined in the year 1990 by around 1.00%. The percentage fall in the interest income in case of Keystone bank was around 0.91% whereas the decline in income of peers in 1990 was at lower rate with 0.84%. Accordingly, it can be analyzed that the performance of peers was better than that of the Keystone Bank (Calomiris, Heider & Hoerova, 2015). The interest expenses of the bank and peers declined in the year 1990 by around 0.5 % hence it can be said that the organizational performance in the year 1989 was better. As the expenses during the year 1989 was higher yet the income earned by the bank and peers was higher than the income of the year 1990 therefore the bank was efficient in the year 1989.

The peers are correct to use since the performance percentage are parallel to that of Keystone International Bank. Further, the peers were engaged in the services of providing loans and deposits similar to the services provided by the Keystone Bank.

It has been observed that the earnings of the Bank reflected at 0.91% while the income of peers reflected at 1.04%. Additionally, income from non- interest services earned by Bank at 0.90% and the income of peers was 0.94%. Hence, it can be said that the peers are correct to use as competitors for the matter of comparison.

Similarly, income from non-interest business activities by the bank reflected 0.92% during the year 1989 whereas the income of peers during the year was 0.97%. However, the income during the year 1990 was declined to 0.90 in case of bank and that of its peers declined to 0.94%. It has been observed that the performance of the peers during both the year was better but the decline in income in case of bank was at higher percentage therefore it could be said that the service structure of the bank was not appropriate to generate decent income. Further, the income before tax of the bank was lower than the peers’ net income before tax during both the years even when the percentage of tax expense in case of peers is higher. It has been observed that the banking policies and internal control system of the Keystone bank were not followed in an appropriate manner to overcome the financial risk position (Chu et al., 2016).

Analysis of Interest-sensitivity report

Financial crisis not only affects the other sector organizations but also the banking sector resulting in performance discrepancy for private, public and foreign banks. Recession period affects the banking sector with respect to the flow of funds from the deposits and borrowings. Impact of liquidity falls on the liquidity of funds because of “mark to market” accounting as per the governmental requirement required to be followed by the banks. Period of recession affects the investment policy and funds in terms of liquid funds or in terms of banking stocks since the flow of funds is restricted in the hands of consumers as well as organizations. During the year 1990 and 1989 most of banks suffered from the recession at an average number of 5000 which reflected around 20% decline in the banking values.

Accordingly, the Keystone Bank performed better with a net income of around 1.00% during the year 1989 and 1990. It can be said that the bank managed to earn considerable profit from the interest as well as from non- interest income along with the commission income. Therefore, it can be said that the bank’s performance was better from that of the peers during the period of recession.

Financial risk is the evaluated by using several ratios using the different variables of financial information in order to evaluate the organization’s level of debt financing. It also measures the efficiency and capability of the business organizations to manage the amount of debt, which is due for repayment to the investors (Watson, 2015). It is essential to measure the organizational financial risk that determines the level of risk tolerance or appetite for maximization of profit and to maintain the sustainable growth. The financial risk is determined by considering the elements of credit, capital, structure of cost and revenue. One of the significant ratios used to measure the financial risk is Debt- to- Capital Ratio that determines the level of leverage in the capital employment (Kwon & Yin, 2015). In case of keystone bank and its peers, the debt- capital ratio is determined by using the value of debt and total capital employed by the company during the financial year 1989 and 1990. Since the information on debts is not clearly available in the present case, Federal funds purchased would be considered as an acquisition of debt (Fabius et al., 2016). Accordingly, the debt to capital ratio would be ____Federal Funds purchased__=       ___14,551__ = 0.36 or 36% in the year 1990.

Shareholders’ equity + Federal Funds  25,669+14,551

On the contrary, percentage of peers’ shareholders equity consisted of 6.98% while the percentage of federal funds purchased was 4.77% average of which comes to 0.42 or 42%. Since the debt capital ratio of back is lower than that of the peers’, it can be interpreted that the financial condition of bank is stable even though the income level is lower. However, the amount of deposits used by the bank during the year 1990 was higher than that of the year 1989. Similarly, debt capital ratio of peers during the year 1989 was higher than that of during the year 1990 that implies the use of high level of debt financing to operate the business functions. Hence, the peers financial position is said to be at risk more than the bank during the financial years 1989 and 1990.

Another financial ratio that can be used to determine the financing risk of bank and its peers is the interest coverage ratio, which indicates the efficiency of the organization to manage the cost of short- term finance. It is determined by using the earnings before interest and taxes and the interest expenses (Giglio, Kelly & Pruitt, 2016). In case of bank and its peers amount of interest cost is not ascertainable hence, equity capital and assets would be considered, which appeared at 6.58% in the year 1990, while 6.45% in the year 1989 as per the financial data of Keystone Bank. Moreover, the equity capital and assets ratio of its peers reflected 6.98% during the year 1990 and 7.08% during the year 1989. It can be interpreted that the capacity of the peers to generate income from the assets to employ as equity capital was higher during the year 1989 while that of the bank was lower. Hence, the ability to generate return from the employment of financial assets by Bank is lower whereas the efficiency of peers to generate profit from the assets was higher (Lee & Andrade, 2015).  

Recession is said to be a negative growth in the regional economy for a continuous period of time that results in decline of economic activity as well as in the organizational performance. On the contrary, non- recession is either a positive growth or stagnant economy for a given period of time that improves the financial economy and performance of the organization. It affects the credit and liquidity risk since the recession impacts a decline in the gross domestic product as well as the value of funds for the country. Additionally, value of assets and other financial assets also decline due to recession, which affect the rate of bank interest and eventually affect the credit risk and liquidity risk.  

Interest sensitivity is an assessment to determine the fluctuation in the price of the fixed asset that generates fixed income due to the change in the prevailing market rate of interest. It can be said that if the shares have more fluctuations in the price then such shares are more sensitive hence, such securities should be analyzed at the time of making investments (Doukas & Walter 2015). Further, there are certain issues with the time market for trading and investment of shares with respect to the setting up of new business or for the purpose of business expansion or diversification. Further, the performance of the market with respect to the capital employment in the business organization becomes an issue in case the market price of the shares fluctuates frequently. Moreover, the time market does not involve the implication of external finance that is long- term hence it does not evaluate the level of financial leverage used by the organizations (Chang & Tsai, 2016).

In the present situation, total assets over the period valued to $198,537, which reflected fluctuations in the value of assets over the several intervals. Additionally, the amount of deposits of the bank during the period in case of noninterest bearing amounted to $70,411 while the interest bearing demands amounted to $12,338. If the maturity period of the asset is longer than the change in rate of interest is more sensitive to generate the asset values (Giglio, Kelly & Pruitt, 2016). In view of the interest rate sensitivity report periodic gap reflected $67,506 during the first period whereas the periodic gap for the entire year reflected an amount of $34,887. The periodic gap indicates the fluctuation in the valuation of assets and interest rate as the cumulative gap reflects the percentage from 7.01% to 9.00% (Patton, 2016). Hence, it can be said that the assets of the company are more sensitive to the changes in the market interest rate during the financial year.

Risk of interest rate is a measurement of risk that indicates the fluctuations in the interest rate considering the prevailing rates of different regions. Such change may affect the market value of the securities held by the investors (Morley et al., 2015). In the present case of Keystone Bank, the sensitivity report of interest rate reflects amount of interest bearing bank balance as the organizational asset whereas the amount of interest on deposits as the liability. However, the report does not reflect the actual rate of interest prevailing in the country in comparison with other countries. Hence, the effect of the change in interest rate in determining the market value of the bank’s securities cannot be determined which is essential to evaluate the efficiency of the organization for its performance (Stoll et al., 2015).

The term liquidity refers the state or efficiency of the business organization to convert the assets into cash balance. It was essential to employ the assets that can be easily converted to cash balance and helps the organization to operate the business activities in a smoother way. Accordingly, liquidity needs for the organizations may be in terms of savings, short- term investments, emergency funds and other current assets (Craig, Fecht & Tümer-Alkan, 2015). As per the liquidity report of Keystone Bank for the first quarter 1991, there are assets with maturing funds totaled to $65.66 million. The organization employed the assets on investment in securities amounted to $8.35 million, Federal funds already sold for an amount of $11,428. It can be said that the most liquidity needs over the first quarter of 1991 are investment securities and federal funds that have already been sold by the Bank. Considering the current ratio 0.75 to measure the liquidity position of the bank, it can be said that the total value of assets is lower than the total value of liabilities hence the value of sources of asset was not sufficient to meet the liabilities. It has been observed that organization had sold off the Federal Funds amounted to $11,428 which can be used as a source of liquid need to meet the obligations (Jinjarak, 2015).

However, the total value of assets consists of principal payments for commercial loans amounted to $15,172 and real estate loans amounted to $6,606 that cannot be considered as income generating assets. Further, payments on consumer loans and other loans including the lease financing cannot be considered as income generating assets to meet the liability obligations during the year (Etula et al., 2015). The principal payments appear under the assets of the organization since the payment has been done in advance i.e. before the due date. On the other hand, total liability of the bank during the first quarter of the year 1990 appears to be $86,993 as maturing funds while $13,900 as volatile funds. Additionally, the bank had acquired an estimated amount of new loan demand valued at $35.00 million and the value of new core deposits $21.00 million. Hence, it was essential for the bank to have liquidity resources to be able to pay back the potential amount of loan at the time of maturity period.

Considering the given report of liquidity of the Keystone Bank it can be said that the bank should acquire short term investments so that it could generate cash on sale of such investments. The bank could also acquire term loans at lower rate of interest for the purpose of working capital since the existing resources of current assets during the beginning of 1991 were not sufficient (Michiels et al., 2015). It can be observed that the bank had acquired higher value of time deposits both under and over value amounting to $100,000 that could be avoided since the outstanding amount was high while the liquid funds were less. Further, the bank could dispose of the assets that were not relevant or unutilized during the financial year 1990 to accumulate certain amount of funds (Calomiris, Heider & Hoerova, 2015).          

In order to improve the banking operations and maximize profitability it is important to regulate the services for consumers’ satisfaction with respect to the competitive market. Considering the current market and banking regulations it is essential to maintain the consumer relationship, consumer requirements along with the banking services. Accordingly, banking organizations are recommended to improve the banking operations in the following ways:

Relationship pricing and product package is one of the methods that increase the demand of the consumers for banking services. This method involves the identification of consumers’ requirements as per the current environment in consideration with the best prices as well as product bundling based on the consumers view. It is important to consider the rates of exchange, interest rates, underwriting service charges that improve the banking operations and assist in maximizing the profitability.

Customer segmentation can be applied by the management to improve the customer relationship by extracting relevant data as per the credit funds and amount of deposits. The management is recommended to share the existing consumer records considering the business applications to understand the demographics, preferences and engagement. This system enables the banking sectors to target the required products by applying services at lower costs and improve marketing strategies.

It is also recommended to the banks to adopt the events on real time basis in order to offer the marketing campaigns based on the cross- channel media to operate the stock transfers, offering credit services and retailing jobs. Method of real- time services enables the organization to save operational time and man power that eventually saves cost of services. Operation of bank services through real- time basis determines consumer needs as per the current economy and helps in increasing the marketability and service channels that helps in considering the best action. It also helps in eliminating the barriers relating to identification of appropriate service areas, locations for marketing and economic advantages at micro and macro level.

Banks can also implement the services by application of “innovative reward design” which helps the organization to motivate the employees for providing efficient service as per the organizational benchmark. This method is also applicable to the consumers that are most profitable to the organization in form of monetary and service benefits. In order to maximize the profitability and increase banking services it is important to have attractive marketing strategy that helps in acquiring potential consumers. Banks can also implement the services of “automated customer care” to provide support services to the consumers that saves the functional time as well as functional cost.

Accordingly, it can be suggested to the Keystone National Bank could have monitored the internal control system to improve the credit and deposit services. It has been observed that the bank had liabilities more than the value of assets hence it is recommended that Keystone should channelize its marketing strategy. The management is required to identify the potential customers to expand the credit services and lower the value of loans and deposits to strengthen its financial position. Further, the bank could focus on the services of interest and commission since it generated higher income and at higher percentage that would maximize the organization’s profitability.

In view of the statistics and reports, it has been noted that the banks have worked and changed dramatically the strategies to manage risk since past years. For the purpose of risk management, banks have implemented several initiatives that involve banking regulations, customer expectations with the change in technology and other banking norms. It has been noted that the banks have worked in reaction to the regulations that have been appeared from the financial crisis across the globe (Diamond & Kashyap, 2016). It has been observed that the banking operations in consideration to the regulations of credit administration and other services would experience change that is more positive in the next few years. The processes that involve risk operations accounted for around 50% for the staff function while the percentage for analytics was only 15%. However, it has been noted that the banks would be able achieve the analytics percentage approximately to 40% while the function’s staff would be managed to 25%. Since the banking trends experience the function of risks from all the perspective of banking regulations and operations, it is difficult to predict the actual risk function for future years. The present economy by considering the financial or non- financial operational functions and regulations need to be broaden to prevent the potential errors, improper practices and banking failures (House, Sablik & Walter, 2016). It is essential for the banking organizations to implement the advanced technology to operate the banking services to the customers that assists in providing the services faster and in accurate manner. It has been noted that with the rise of advancement in technology, expectation of consumers also rise parallel to the change in information technology.

It has been observed that the evolution in the technological system and advancement in the analytics gives rise to the techniques of risk management especially in the banking sectors. Banking services include credit underwriting, credit monitoring, detection of fraud in the services of credit- card facilities and other services of loans and deposits that have to be operated by using the advanced technologies (Bonner, Van Lelyveld & Zymek, 2015). Further, advancement in the banking economics whether financial or non- financial assists the managers of risk to consider the advanced operational structure to eliminate the operational risks, credit margins as per the banking regulations. The risk managers are also required to implement the improved means of banking regulations to manage and reduce the operational costs by maintaining the quality of services. Accordingly, several initiatives and trends with respect to the future banking services can be analyzed to monitor the risk management for banking sectors (DeAngelo & Stulz, 2015).

First trend that assist in shaping the function of risk management is continuation of regulation in a broader way. In the emerging economies, banking operations need to comply with more advanced regulation for financial as well as non- financial functions including several banking facilities to the consumers. It was noted that financial crisis during the year 2008 have been resolved to a great extent in the financial markets considering the economies that are developed. It has been made mandatory in several regions to maintain the regulations with respect to the bribery, tax collection or monetary fraud. Similarly, regulations for the practices of employment services and standards of environment should be implemented (Gambetta, Zorio-Grima & García-Benau, 2015).  

Second trend involves customer expectations in relation to the change in technologies conducted by the competitors like companies involved in financial technologies. It has been noticed that during the year 2014, the technological activities accounted to the profits of the bank for around 60% while the percentage of equity return noted to 22%. The banking services are required to implement the technologies that assist in providing instant services to the retailers, decisions for corporate credit and other services for loans and advances. In addition to this, third trend involve the evolution of analytics with respect to the advanced technology (Calomiris & Carlson, 2016). It involves the understanding and implementation of technological innovation to assist the banking services to manage the risk functions considering the lower cost. The technological factors provide potential impact on the banking sectors by considering big data, learning for machines and crowd sourcing. Big data indicates the functions of risk at low cost as well as in a faster way to provide the services to structured consumer information including the unstructured consumers’ information. Such activities help the banking services in taking better decisions for credit risk by detecting the financial fraud and error. Similarly, machine learning involves the improvement in risk models to the accurate numbers by recognizing the patterns that are complex involved in the sets of large data. The implementation of machine learning resulted in achievement of results in faster way and accurate manner by eliminating the financial errors. On the contrary, crowd sourcing is an idea enabled by using the source of internet that improves the efficiency of business operations. Such implementation of improved technological factors supports in reducing the cost and fines of risk factors if such factors are applied at the right time (Berg, 2015).

Fourth trend involves emergence of new risks in the banking sector that includes model risk, contagion risk and risk of cyber security. In order to manage the banking risks effectively it is important to understand the model risk in a better way, which involves the evaluation and implementation of appropriate and relevant interest rates. The model requires to be implemented by using the correct assumptions and error free data entry. Similarly, the contagion risk involves understanding of vulnerability of the financial market across the globe measure the performance and impact of contagion. Cyber security involves the protection against the crime and errors that attack the internet and other cyber resources. Accordingly, risk managers are required to consider the functions that protect the cybercrime and improve the banking services (Giovannoni, Quarchioni & Riccaboni, 2016).

Further, the fifth trend implies the risk functions that assist to eliminate the banking biasness, which considered the behavioral economics to understand the decision-making functions of consumers. Risk managers are required to analyze the consumers’ behavior to remove the conscious biasness to perform the effective banking services. Similarly, the last trend presents the pressure with respect to the savings of cost to operate the banking services effectively. It is important to for the risk managers to measure the approaches for cost- cutting in simple, standard and digitized manner. The risk managers are required to manage the operational costs to perform the banking services in an effective manner with improved technologies (Bromiley et al., 2015).

In view of the above discussion, it can be said that the scenarios mentioned by Mckinsey & Company provides practical view for implementing the practices to mitigate the banking risk. In the present era most of the organizations and consumers depend on the resources of advanced technology to improve the business processes with respect to time, cost and quality. The article by Mckinsey & Company focuses on the basic functions to be implemented by the banks to eliminate the risk factors and to perform the services in an accurate manner. It can be said that the trends stated in the article are justified parallel to the type of services banking sectors provide to the consumers (Giovannoni, Quarchioni & Riccaboni, 2016). In the present economy, online services are growing to a great extent for which improved and advanced information technology is required along with resources of internet. For instance, services with respect to the credit fund, loans and borrowings, credit underwriting and other related services should be performed by the banks after eliminating the functional risks. It is essential for the banks to consider the banking regulation to perform the services in compliance with the legal requirements and principal banking norms. As the expectations of consumers’ increases in terms of the improved and upgraded technological factors, it is important for the banks to implement the services procedures in accordance with the advanced technology. Further, the banks are required to understand the consumer requirements and preferences as well as their expectations to implement the relevant services to eliminate the risk factors. The banking sectors are required to enhance the service functions in regulation to the reporting of risks so that the potential errors or frauds can be removed to provide better banking services (DeAngelo & Stulz, 2015).

For instance, some of the top banks in Canada are best known to perform the services on credit risk, market risk, financial risk and economic risk in recent times. Royal Bank of Canada is one of the top banks to perform in line with the risk management thereby recorded the asset size of C$ 1150 billion. Accordingly, it can be recommended that the banks are required to evaluate the current trends, consumer preferences and requirements and the available risk factors. Further, the banking sectors are required to formulate the functions on risk management by considering the available technological resources and required resources that would help the banks to improve the consumer services (Berg, 2015).

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