Assessing Counterparty Risk post-GFC – some lessons for #FinTech

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Content in Context

At the height of the GFC, banks, governments, regulators, investors and corporations were all struggling to assess the amount of credit risk that Lehman Brothers represented to global capital markets and financial systems. One of the key lessons learnt from the Lehman collapse was the need to take a very different approach to identifying, understanding and managing counterparty risk – a lesson which fintech startups would be well-advised to heed, but one which should also present new opportunities.

In Lehman’s case, the credit risk was not confined to the investment bank’s ability to meet its immediate and direct financial obligations. It extended to transactions, deals and businesses where Lehman and its myriad of subsidiaries in multiple jurisdictions provided a range of financial services – from liquidity support to asset management; from brokerage to clearing and settlement; from commodities trading to securities lending. The contagion risk represented by Lehman was therefore not just the value of debt and other obligations it issued in its own name, but also the exposures represented by the extensive network of transactions where Lehman was a counterparty – such as acting as guarantor, underwriter, credit insurer, collateral provider or reference entity.

Before the GFC

Counterparty risk was seen purely as a form of bilateral risk. It related to single transactions or exposures. It was mainly limited to hedging and derivative positions. It was confined to banks, brokers and OTC market participants. In particular, the use of credit default swaps (CDS) to insure against the risk of an obiligor (borrower or bond issuer) failing to meet its obligations in full and on time.

The problem is that there is no limit to the amount of credit “protection” policies that can be written against a single default, much like the value of stock futures and options contracts being written in the derivatives markets can outstrip the value of the underlying equities. This results in what is euphemistically called market “overhang”, where the total face value of derivative instruments trading in the market far exceeds the value of the underlying securities.

As a consequence of the GFC, global markets and regulators undertook a delicate process of “compression”, to unwind the outstanding CDS positions back to their core underlying obligations, thereby averting a further credit squeeze as liquidity is released back into the market.

Post-GFC

Counterparty risk is now multi-dimensional. Exposures are complex and inter-related. It can apply to any credit-related obligation (loans, stored value cards, trade finance, supply chains etc.). It is not just a problem for banks, brokers and intermediaries. Corporate treasurers and CFOs are having to develop counterparty risk policies and procedures (e.g., managing individual bank lines of credit or reconciling supplier/customer trading terms).

It has also drawn attention to other factors for determining counterparty credit risk, beyond the nature and amount of the financial exposure, including:

Bank counterparty risk – borrowers and depositors both need to be reassured that their banks can continue to operate if there is any sort of credit event or market disruption. (During the GFC, some customers distributed their deposits among several banks – to diversify their bank risk, and to bring individual deposits within the scope of government-backed deposit guarantees)
Shareholder risk – companies like to diversify their share registry, by having a broad investor base; but, if stock markets are volatile, some shareholders are more likely to sell off their shares (e.g., overseas investors and retail investors) which impacts the market cap value when share prices fall
Concentration risk – in the past, concentration risk was mostly viewed from a portfolio perspective, and with reference to single name or sector exposures. Now, concentration risk has to be managed across a combination of attributes (geographic, industry, supply chain etc.)

Implications for Counterparty Risk Management

Since the GFC, market participants need to have better access to more appropriate data, and the ability to interrogate and interpret the data, for “hidden” or indirect exposures. For example, if your company is exporting to, say Greece, and you are relying on your customers’ local banks to provide credit guarantees, how confidant are you that the overseas bank will be able to step in if your client defaults on the payment?

Counterparty data is not always configured to easily uncover potential or actual risks, because the data is held in silos (by transactions, products, clients etc.) and not organized holistically (e.g., a single view of a customer by accounts, products and transactions, and their related parties such as subsidiaries, parent companies or even their banks).

Business transformation projects designed to improve processes and reduce risk tend to be led by IT or Change Management teams, where data is often an afterthought. Even where there is a focus on data management, the data governance is not rigorous and lacks structure, standards, stewardship and QA.

Typical vendor solutions for managing counterparty risk tend to be disproportionately expensive or take an “all or nothing” approach (i.e., enterprise solutions that favour a one-size-fits-all solution). Opportunities to secure incremental improvements are overlooked in favour of “big bang” outcomes.

Finally, solutions may already exist in-house, but it requires better deployment of available data and systems to realize the benefits (e.g., by getting the CRM to “talk to” the loan portfolio).

Opportunities for Fintech

The key lesson for fintech in managing counterparty risk is that more data, and more transparent data, should make it easier to identify potential problems. Since many fintech startups are taking advantage of better access to, and improved availability of, customer and transactional data to develop their risk-calculation algorithms, this should help them flag issues such as possible credit events before they arise.

Fintech startups are less hamstrung by legacy systems (e.g., some banks still run COBOL on their core systems), and can develop more flexible solutions that are better suited to the way customers interact with their banks. As an example, the proportion of customers who only transact via mobile banking is rapidly growing, which places different demands on banking infrastructure. More customers are expected to conduct all their other financial business (insurance, investing, financial planning, wealth management, superannuation) via mobile solutions that give them a consolidated view of their finances within a single point of access.

However, while all the additional “big data” coming from e-commerce, mobile banking, payment apps and digital wallets represents a valuable resource, if not used wisely, it’s just another data lake that is hard to fathom. The transactional and customer data still needs to be structured, tagged and identified so that it can be interpreted and analysed effectively.

The role of Legal Entity Identifiers in Counterparty Risk

In the case of Lehman Brothers, the challenge in working out which subsidiary was responsible for a specific debt in a particular jurisdiction was mainly due to the lack of formal identification of each legal entity that was party to a transaction. Simply knowing the counterparty was “Lehman” was not precise or accurate enough.

As a result of the GFC, financial markets and regulators agreed on the need for a standard system of unique identifiers for each and every market participant, regardless of their market roles. Hence the assignment of Legal Entity Identifiers (LEI) to all entities that engage in financial transactions, especially cross-border.

To date, nearly 400,000 LEIs have been issued globally by the national and regional Local Operating Units (LOU – for Australia, this is APIR). There is still a long way to go to assign LEIs to every legal entity that conducts any sort of financial transaction, because the use of LEIs has not yet been universally mandated, and is only a requirement for certain financial reporting purposes (for example, in Australia, in theory the identifier would be extended to all self-managed superannuation funds because they buy and sell securities, and they are subject to regulation and reporting requirements by the ATO).

The irony is that while LEIs are not yet universal, financial institutions are having to conduct more intensive and more frequent KYC, AML and CTF checks – something that would no doubt be a lot easier and a lot cheaper by reference to a standard counterparty identifier such as the LEI. Hopefully, an enterprising fintech startup is on the case.

Next week: Sharing the love – tips from #startup founders

#FinTech – using data to disintermediate banks?

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Content in Context

At a recent #FinTechMelb meetup event, Aris Allegos, co-founder and CEO of Moula, talked about how the on-line SME lender had raised $30m in investor funding from Liberty Financial within 9 months of launch, as evidence that their concept worked. In addition, Moula has access to warehouse financing facilities to underwrite unsecured loans of up to $100k, and has strategic partnerships with Xero (cloud accounting software) and Tyro (payments platform).

Moula is yet one more example of how #FinTech startups are using a combination of “big data” (and proprietary algorithms) to disrupt and disintermediate traditional bank lending, both personal and business. Initially, Moula is drawing on e-commerce and social media data (sales volumes, account transactions, customer feedback, etc.). Combined with the borrower’s cashflow and accounting data, plus its own “secret sauce” credit analysis, Moula is able to process on-line loan applications within minutes, rather than the usual days or weeks that banks can take to approve SME loans – and the latter often require some form of security, such as property or other assets.

So far, in the peer-to-peer (P2P) market there are about half-a-dozen providers, across personal and business loans, offering secured and unsecured products, to either retail or sophisticated investors, via direct matching or pooled lending solutions. Along with Moula, the likes of SocietyOne, RateSetter, DirectMoney, Spotcap, ThinCats and the forthcoming MoneyPlace are all vying for a share of the roughly $90bn personal loan and $400bn commercial loan market, the bulk of which is serviced by Australia’s traditional banks. (Although no doubt the latter are waking up to this threat, with Westpac, for example, investing in SocietyOne.)

We should be careful to distinguish between the P2P market and the raft of so-called “payday” lenders, who lend direct to consumers, often at much higher interest rates than either bank loans or standard credit cards, and who have recently leveraged web and mobile technology to bring new brands and products to market. Amid broad allegations of predatory lending practices, exorbitant interest rates and specific cases of unconscionable conduct, payday lenders are facing something of a backlash as some banks decide to withdraw their funding support from such providers.

However, opportunities to disintermediate banks from their traditional areas of business is not confined to personal and business loans: point-to-point payment services, stored-value apps, point of sale platforms and foreign currency tools are just some of the disruptive and data-driven startup solutions to emerge. That’s not to say that the banks themselves are not joining in, either through strategic partnerships, direct investments or in-house innovation – as well as launching on-line brands, expanded mobile banking apps and new product distribution models.

But what about the data? In Australia, a recent report from Roy Morgan Research reveals that we are increasingly using solely our mobile devices to access banking services (albeit at a low overall engagement level). But expect this usage to really take off when ApplePay comes to the market. Various public bodies are also embracing the hackathon spirit to open up (limited) access to their data to see what new and innovative client solutions developers and designers can come up with. Added to this is the positive consumer credit reporting regime which means more data sources can be used for personal credit scoring, and to provide even more detailed profiles about customers.

As one seasoned banker told me recently as he outlined his vision for a new startup bank, one of the “five C’s of credit” is Character (the others being Capacity – ability to pay based on cashflow and interest coverage; Capital – how much the borrower is willing to contribute/risk; Collateral – what assets can be secured against the loan; and Conditions – the purpose of the loan, the market environment, and loan terms). “Character” is not simply “my word is my bond”, but takes into account reputation, integrity and relationships – and increasingly this data is easily discoverable via social media monitoring and search tools. It stills needs to be validated, but using cross-referencing and triangulation techniques, it’s not that difficult to build up a risk profile that is not wholly reliant on bank account data or payment records.

Imagine a scenario where your academic records, club memberships, professional qualifications, social media profiles and LinkedIn account could say more about you and your potential creditworthiness than how much money you have in your bank account, or how much you spend on your credit card.

Declaration of interest: The author currently consults to Roy Morgan Research. These comments are made in a personal capacity.

Next week: Rapid-fire pitching competitions hot up…..

#AngelCube favours B2B #startups…

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Content in Context

The latest intake to AngelCube‘s accelerator program presented at the recent Startup Victoria meetup event. It was interesting to see that all 6 pitches were aimed at B2B audiences, since I have heard several angel investors and startup advisers express a strong preference for end-consumer products (or those with 2-sided markets). Perhaps there is more appetite for enterprise solutions, despite the longer lead times for sales, and the challenge of strategies required to displace incumbant products.

Whether there is a new interest in B2B startups, or whether more founders are identifying B2B opportunities, there’s probably some further analysis to be done. Meanwhile, here are the 6 fledgling startups in the order they pitched on the night:

1. Peer Academy

Peer Academy aims to “change the way professionals learn”. It does this by offering students access to open enrollment classes via an online market place. The classes are conducted by facilitators and experts (“hosts”) who have been “screened” for quality by Peer Academy, with a focus on “soft” management and leadership skills.

Peer Academy hopes that students will act as “warm leads” for corporate sales, by taking their classroom experience back into their organisations, and acting as champions or brand advocates. With follow-up introductions to training and HR managers, Peer Academy then curates programs for corporate clients, by matching training needs to individual users.

I like the notion of “peer-to-peer” learning (although I presume that the hosts are expected to have more advanced and developed skills than their students), and there is certainly a trend for alternative learning platforms. At least one major bank has expressed interest in sourcing corporate training via Peer Academy, who take a 30% commission on course sales.

A huge challenge will be to engage corporate clients who already have established relationships with trusted training providers, or who have existing panels of approved organisations, or who outsource training procurement to third parties.

2. Jack

Workplace wellbeing is becoming big business ($5bn and counting?), and in the process, sedentary workers are in the firing line. According to Apple CEO TIM Cook, “Sitting is the new cancer”, and hence the recent fad/trend/fashion for sit-stand desks which is driving market interest in ergonomic solutions. The team at Jack have built a device that can monitor how much time people are sitting or standing, and even provide some feedback on user posture.

As you would expect, Jack uses cloud connectivity to monitor user activity, and to relay data via cross-platform apps and dashboards. It also uses elements of social media engagement and gamification, and has already launched a pilot scheme with several desk suppliers, as well as a paid beta at a well-known payments provider.

Customers will buy the device plus pay for a monthly subscription service. There is a direct competitor, but Jack claim their device can be retrofitted to any sit-stand desk. The unit price is much higher than, say a Fitbit, but since this is not a consumer product, Jack is confident it can sustain current pricing.

Finally, with the data it aims to collect, Jack reckons it may even be able to help reduce insurance premiums, although this will no doubt be subject to actuarial scrutiny, Work Cover and OH&S requirements, as well as data privacy issues.

3. Coin-Craft

In the professional services and consulting sectors, tracking project costs and resourcing have become highly demanding activities – witness the plethora of project management, costing, billing, ERP and time-tracking solutions on the market. Based on personal experience, the founders of Coin-Craft have identified a specific need among architects, and have built an all-in-one tool for Project Management, Cashflow Analysis and Resource Planning. Built “for architects by architects”, Coin-Craft is designed to help clients stay optimal, by managing staff over/under utilisation, and tracking cashflow projections.

The system also claims to integrate with third-party accounting software, and has around a dozen firms using the service, with another 30 in the pipeline. Although Coin-Craft have chosen a niche client base to protect their market entry, they claim the solution can also be adopted by engineering practices, graphic art studios and project management firms.

However, feedback from the audience suggested there are already similar, mature products that are tracking individual billable hours against specific projects, so Coin-Craft may need to work on their value proposition and differentiation.

4. CurveUp!

As social media and content marketing become more ubiquitous (if not more sophisticated), companies need to understand the value of their direct marketing spend. Mostly, they can do this via web analytics, e-commerce tracking, campaign conversions, and cost of customer acquisition. According to CurveUp! however, measuring the ROI of your PR activity is not so easy using “conventional” social media monitoring tools. For example, CurveUp! claim they can deliver tailored reports to show which blog post or article converted to a ticket sale for a concert or event.

Currently using web and online sources only, CurveUp! track mentions and link this to customer data. Some platforms, such as Instagram, are harder to track, and even via a possible API solution, it will only be possible to monitor the number of views and shares, but otherwise little or no data will be available.

However, at least one online market place has expressed interest, and CurveUp! has the potential to integrate with Facebook and Google, so that clients could possibly use campaign codes to track referral activity from mention to firm sale. Overall, the service will need to align itself with the ROI outcomes linked to PR campaign goals – which will vary between clients and markets, depending on organisational KPIs around brand advocacy, share of wallet, products per customer and customer satisfaction.

5. TribeGrowth

In a similar vein, the team at TribeGrowth claim to have built “artificial intelligence for social media marketing“. Their goal is to help clients build an audience and get customers, via the use of “intelligent engagement” to generate conversions.

Initially targeting startups, professional service providers and the hospitality sector, TribeGrowth offers a tiered monthly subscription service, and claims to be a (cheaper) alternative to agencies or even Twitter ads.

Currently in private beta (and so far, only designed for Twitter and Instagram), TribeGrowth focuses on audience growth by careful selection of connections and influencers. According to the founders, this is not “pay & spray”, but uses machine learning to refine audience outreach and engagement.

6. SweetHawk

Finally, and in what was probably the most technical presentation of the evening, came SweetHawk, which is building “voice for e-commerce”. I have to confess that, although I had previously heard about this product, I’m still not totally clear how it works.

In essence, it’s an outbound platform that enables companies to have more focused/targeted real-time conversations with warm sales prospects, namely people who are visiting their websites. Personally, I would find that a bit spooky, if I was browsing a site and suddenly a widget popped up asking me if I wanted to receive a call right there and then. Isn’t it a bit like stalking?

The business model is designed to offer tiered services in return for monthly subscription fees – depending on call volumes and functionality, such as workflow tools. I would see it as sitting somewhere between an outbound sales call centre and a SaaS-style inbound helpdesk solution.

On the plus side, I do see the opportunity to deliver superior and more responsive customer service, except that SweetHawk appears to be a sales and prospecting platform, not an after-sales or support solution. I’m also used to live chat tools that pop up on various software and other service sites I use, so I would probably engage with a similar offering if I was browsing to purchase.

Final Thoughts

While none of these pitches has so far demonstrated anything truly disruptive (but let’s not criticise them for that), they all seem reasonably sensible and logical solutions using a mix of digitally-driven technologies (cloud, mobile, social, peer-to-peer, data analytics) that we are all increasingly familiar with. So, rather than major game changers, I see each of them building on established platforms. By refining the potential that new technologies and business models are creating, they are tapping into better-defined client needs rather than taking a “build it and they will come” approach.

In conclusion, I was generally impressed by the 6 pitches on offer, although some of the presentations will no doubt be reworked in light of the audience feedback and Q&A, and before the plucky founders hit the investor road show organised by AngelCube.

The event was hosted by inspire9, and sponsored by BlueChilli and PwC.

Next week: More on FinTech – another look at data and disintermediation

The future of #FinTech is in Enterprise Solutions

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Content in Context

Talk to anyone involved in FinTech, and apart from telling you the sector is “hot”, there’s little consensus on what happens next. Despite positioning itself as a disruptive force within financial services, much of what goes on in the sector is either driven by regulatory reform, or by technological developments in allied fields. Most of the disruption so far is in retail and B2C services, yet the more significant opportunities are likely to be found in enterprise and B2B solutions. But as The Economist commented recently, “The fintech firms are not about to kill off traditional banks.”

The Current State

In broad terms, FinTech is working in four main areas:

Cryptocurrencies
Payments
P2P lending
Financial Advice and Planning

The first two are responding to dual technological advances – namely, the use of block chains and cryptography; and increased sophistication around mobile and GPS. Patrick Maes, CTO of ANZ Bank, has stated that “Bitcoin and block chain are the first payments innovations in 2,000 years.” He also has a FinTech “wish list”.

The second two (at least, within Australia) are benefitting from regulatory changes, such as the new positive consumer credit reporting regime, and the Future of Financial Advice reforms. And when the National Payments Platform scheduled for 2017 mandates real-time settlements, everyone will have access to immediate inter-bank payment services.

Of course, there is some overlap among these categories, which in turn are also benefitting from developments in big data analytics, mobile solutions, social media platforms, and consumer trends like crowdsourcing and the shared economy.

It may be interesting – but it’s not whole picture

Disintermediation May Not Be Enough?

Most of the FinTech disruption has been in the nature of disintermediation – displacing the role of traditional banks and merchant services in providing payment solutions, point-of-sale facilities and personal loan products. But given the relatively small margins on these services, you either need to have a totally different cost structure, or a significantly large market position to achieve scale and volume.

You will have seen the above infographic, often quoted with a sense of wonder at how these companies have built huge businesses seemingly without having to own any physical assets. Well, yes, but dig deeper, and what do we find? The banks have always worked on the same principle – they take customer deposits (which they don’t own), and then lend them to borrowers (whose secured assets they don’t own unless there is a default).

The main difference is that banks are highly regulated (unlike most of these digital market disruptors), and as such they have to hold sufficient capital assets to cover their exposures. Meanwhile, the banks finance the car loans taken out by Uber drivers, they provide credit facilities and export guarantees to Alibaba traders, they underwrite the mortgages on properties used for Airbnb, and will likely provide e-commerce services to advertisers who use Facebook.

For me, probably the last major FinTech disruptor was Bloomberg (founded back in 1981), because it changed the way banks and brokers accessed news and information to support their trading activities, by introducing proprietary analytics and data tools via dedicated terminals, screens and datafeeds. So successful has Bloomberg been that it now owns about one-third of the global market for financial data, and is the single-largest player (albeit by a very small margin over main rival Thomson Reuters – itself, a merger of two key data vendors). Plus Bloomberg is still privately held.

The Future State

I don’t believe FinTech can truly come of age until a major enterprise solution appears. For different reasons, Stripe and BlueDot could be on their way, but both are primarily operating in the consumer payments sector.

I have written previously on the areas where FinTech could impact institutional banking and securities trading, including loan origination, data analytics and risk management. I’ve also reported on the opportunity to disrupt traditional market data vendors by changing the pricing and consumption models. And elsewhere, I have hypothesized on how banks’ trade finance services could be disrupted.

The areas where “Big FinTech” could truly make a difference are:

Counterparty Risk Management
Predictive Credit Risk Analytics
Loan Pricing Models
Unit Pricing Calculations
Collateral Management
Portfolio Performance Attribution
Sentiment-based Trading and Risk Pricing

However, the final word should go to Patrick Maes, who suggested that a huge opportunity exists in deposit products linked to customer loyalty programs and frequent flyer points – what if your credit card points could be used to finance a car lease or as part of the deposit on your first home?

Next week: Change Management for Successful Product Development

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