Taxpayer should not facilitate risky bank cocos
Directly after the great
financial crisis, the Basel Committee demanded straight equity as
regulatory capital, as several debt forms of regulatory capital did not
absorb losses. But shortly afterwards, the banks pressed the Basel
Committee successfully to allow cocos: contingent convertible bonds that
convert to equity if the regulatory capital drops below a threshold.
The taxpayer facilitates these cocos, as the interest payments are
deductible from corporate taxes while dividend payments are not
deductible. In its 2017 Budget, the Swedish government is rightly
putting a ban on interest rate deductibility of cocos. Dirk Schoenmaker
suggests that other governments follow this example.
By:
Dirk Schoenmaker
Date: September 30, 2016
During the great financial crisis, banks
appeared to be heavily undercapitalised. Banks had as little as 2
percent equity capital of risk-weighted assets (so-called tier 1
capital) and were allowed to count sub-ordinated debt as capital
(so-called tier 2 capital). However, this subordinated debt did not
absorb losses, when it was needed during the crisis.[1]
To correct for that, the Basel Committee proposed higher and better
quality capital for banks in the Basel 3 capital accord. The focus was
on Core Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital, which was increased from 2 to 4.5
percent of the risk-weighted capital ratio. So far, so good.
But then the bank lobby started again.
Under pressure from the US, the Basel Committee allowed cocos as
additional tier 1 capital (as well as tier 2 capital). These cocos can
contribute to 1.5 percent of the risk weighted capital ratio. Cocos are
contingent convertible bonds that convert to equity if the regulatory
capital ratio drops below a certain pre-determined threshold. More
recently, the ECB (2016) has eased banks’ capital burden by replacing a
portion of binding requirements with non-binding guidance.[2] This change makes it less likely that banks will face restrictions on dividends, bonuses and additional Tier 1 coupon payments.
Why are cocos so popular with bankers?
The tax-deductibility of interest has
spurred the push towards the increasing use of debt as regulatory
capital, in an attempt to have the best of both worlds: Telling the
regulator that these ‘capital instruments’ can absorb losses, like
equity, while at the same telling the taxman that these instruments are
debt, so that interest payments can be deducted for corporate tax
(Schoenmaker, 2015). The latter reduces the private costs of debt for
banks. Cocos are thus an example of having your cake and eat it.
More broadly, Allen et al. (2011)
argue for equal treatment of equity and debt for corporate tax
purposes. They note that it is not clear why in many countries debt
interest is tax deductible at the corporate level but dividends are not.
There does not seem to be any good public policy rationale for having
this deductibility, which appears to have arisen as an historical
accident. If tax deductibility is why there is a desire to use debt
rather than equity, then the simple solution is to remove the tax
deductibility.
The same policy mistake again
It looks like history is repeating itself.
Before the crisis, subordinated debt was promoted by academics because
of its disciplinary function (e.g. Flannery 2001). As banks with higher
asset risk have to pay higher interest rates on subordinated debt, such
debt can induce banks to lower asset risk in order to reduce interest
payments. Next, indirect discipline may happen when regulators take
prompt corrective actions against banks with high subordinated debt
yields or banks unable to roll over subordinated debt. These corrective
actions may not only prevent further losses of problem banks, but also
stop bank managers from pursuing unsound risk.
But it did not work as envisaged. First,
subordinated debt yields were only partly rising, as investors (with
hindsight rightly) expected to be bailed out. Next, subordinated debt
(and bail-in debt) may work in the case of an idiosyncratic failure, but
not during widespread banking crisis as authorities may not want to
spread contagion by writing down subordinated / bail-in debt.[3]
Several academics question the financial
stability implications of bail-in debt and cocos. Avgouleas and Goodhart
(2015) call for a closer examination of the bail-in process, if it is
to become a successful substitute to the unpopular bailout approach.
They argue that bail-in regimes will fail to eradicate the need for an
injection of public funds where there is a threat of systemic collapse,
because a number of banks have simultaneously entered into difficulties,
or in the event of the failure of a large complex cross-border bank,
except in those cases where failure was clearly idiosyncratic.
Similarly, Chan and Van Wijnbergen (2015)
show that while the coco conversion of the issuing bank may bring the
bank back into compliance with capital requirements, it will
nevertheless raise the probability of a bank run, because conversion is a
negative signal to depositors about asset quality. Moreover, conversion
imposes a negative externality on other banks in the system in the
likely case of correlated asset returns, so bank runs elsewhere in the
banking system become more probable too and systemic risk will actually
go up after conversion. This is a form of information contagion.
These predicted contagion effects have
proved to be real. Deutsche was at the centre of the market volatility
earlier this year in February when investors grew concerned about the
potential for it to stop paying coupons on its additional tier 1 cocos
because of a multibillion-euro loss in 2015 (FT, 2016). During
February’s sell-off, the market for selling new cocos shut down
entirely. Since then, there have been a handful of new sales, most
recently from BBVA in Spain and Rabobank in the Netherlands in April.
Cocos thus lead to a direct conflict
between micro- and macroprudential objectives. There is an emerging
consensus that macro stability concerns should have priority over micro
soundness concerns (Schoenmaker 2014). There is a limit to the extent
that bail-in debt or contingent convertible capital can replace real
upfront equity capital.
Forgone tax revenues
The European coco market was first
launched in 2013 and now stands at €171 billion. Table 1 presents an
overview of outstanding cocos and calculates the tax savings for banks.
All European countries, except for Ireland, allow tax deductibility.
Interestingly, also the United States does not allow tax deductibility
of interest payments on cocos. Our calculations show that European
taxpayers forego up to €2.7 billion in corporate tax revenues, because
of the tax deductibility. In particular, the countries with large banks
(France, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) have substantial
foregone tax revenues.
Sweden is reversing the policy mistake
Sweden is now the first to correct the
policy mistake. In the Budget Bill for 2017, the Swedish government
proposes a ban on deductions for interest expenditure on certain
subordinated liabilities, such as cocos (Sweden, 2016). The Swedish
taxpayer will thus stop facilitating Swedish bank cocos.
The abolishment of tax deductibility will
reduce the popularity of cocos. On the policy front, we recommend other
countries to follow the example of Sweden (as well as of Ireland and the
United States).
The author would like to thank Bennet Berger for excellent research assistance.
[1]
Subordinated debt only absorbs losses in case of insolvency, but not in
the case of bailout, which was the commonly used instrument of
government support during the crisis.
[2]
Supervisors can set additional capital requirements (pillar 2 add-ons).
The ECB has decided to split these Pillar 2 add-ons in a hard
requirement and guidance. If the pillar 2 requirement is not met, the
distribution of profits is capped by the so-called maximum distributable
amount. However, if Pillar 2 guidance is not met, banks can still
distribute profits in the form of dividends and additional tier 1 coupon
payments.
[3]
A good example is ING: doubt arose about the interest payment on the
subordinated debt of ING at the height of the financial crisis in Autumn
2008. Some investors questioned publicly whether ING would meet the
upcoming interest payments on its subordinated debt. Although ING meant
to meet the next interest payment, the supervisor did not permit ING to
say so as payments on subordinated debt are conditional on meeting
certain capital ratios at the time of payment. After a sharp drop in the
share price, the supervisor gave special permission to ING to announce
that it was planning to meet its upcoming interest payments (Avgouleas et al. 2013).
References
Allen, F., Beck T., Carletti, E., Lane, P., Schoenmaker, D., and W. Wagner (2011), ‘Cross-Border Banking in Europe: Implications for Financial Stability and Macroeconomic Policies’, London: CEPR Report.
Avgouleas, E., C. Goodhart and D. Schoenmaker (2013), ‘Bank Resolution Plans as a Catalyst for Global Financial Reform’, Journal of Financial Stability, 9, 210-218.
Avgouleas, E. and C. Goodhart (2015), ‘Critical Reflections on Bank Bail-ins’, Journal of Financial Regulation 1, 3-29.
Chan, S. and S. van Wijnbergen (2015), ‘Cocos, Contagion and Systemic Risk’, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 10960.
European Central Bank (2016), Frequently asked questions on the 2016 EU-wide stress test, Frankfurt, available at: https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/about/ssmexplained/html/stress_test_FAQ.en.html
Financial Times (2016),
ECB is having second thoughts on ‘coco’ bonds: Bankers say hybrid
securities could undermine a lender’s financial position in a crisis, 24
April.
Flannery, M. J., 2001. The faces of “market discipline”. Journal of Financial Services Research, 20 (2/3), 107-119.
Schoenmaker, D. ed., 2014. Macroprudentialism. VoxEU eBook, London: CEPR.
Schoenmaker, D. (2015), ‘Regulatory Capital: Why Is It Different?’, Accounting and Business Research, 45, 468-483.
Sweden (2016), Budget Bill for 2017: Reform and Financing Table, September, available at: http://www.government.se/articles/2016/09/the-2017-budget-in-five-minutes/
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