White Papers

Open Risk White Paper 17: Sustainable Public Procurement. Part I: Emissions Attribution

Public Procurement represents a major opportunity to catalyze the transition of economies towards more sustainable patterns but faces important challenges. We review mechanisms that can help address key pain points through the use of open standards, open data and open source tools. In the first part we frame the overall task of Sustainable Public Procurement as an instance of portfolio management. We outline three distinct information processing pillars that are relevant in this context. We focus here on the task of measuring and attributing greenhouse gas emissions to an existing procurement portfolio.

Summary

We imagine the random propagation of money flows through simplified economic networks as a sequence of monetary transactions following a stochastic process. We follow the journey of a cash amount. Whenever a transaction in this chain implies an environmental impact, that impact is recorded and cumulated. Computing the expected outcome of such flows reproduces the standard results of environmentally extended input-output models. The random walk interpretation allows the computation of various additional statistical properties, one example being estimating a variance of environmental impact or intrinsic uncertainty around the central estimate. We interpret this uncertainty as being a concentration risk measure.

Open Risk White Paper 16: Follow the Money: Random Walks on Supply and Use Graphs

We explore how to organize Environmentally-Extended Input-Output frameworks (EEIO), and in particular their Supply and Use Table (SUT) formulation, as graphs. Working directly with SUT systems instead of converting to symmetric IO matrices involves fewer assumptions and (in principle) higher resolution in expressing environmental impacts. We elaborate first on the representation of SUT tables as directed, weighted bipartite graphs. We discuss both closed (circular) and open system configurations, featuring source and sink nodes. These are modeled as regular and absorbing Markov Chains respectively. We outline a probabilistic random walk framework that realizes mathematically the colloquial Follow the Money concept. This enables computing a range of various existing and new metrics using the EEIO data. As an illustration, besides the standard environmental footprint metric, we introduce the concept of footprint variance or the intrinsic variability of estimates. We illustrate the overall setup using a classic numerical example from the EEIO literature.

Open Risk White Paper 15: Tensor Representations of ActivityPub Networks

In this third Open Risk White Paper on Connecting the Dots we explore representations of online communication networks that are organized according to the ActivityPub protocol. We discuss the main relevant features of the protocol and the broader application ecosystem around it that shapes emerging online network topologies. We develop a stylized description of ActivityPub compliant networks as a mathematical multilayer network. Tensor representations of such complex graphs generalize the more familiar matrix algebra tools and can be useful in various ways: On the one hand they help empirical work in analyzing the characteristics of such networks, on the other they enable simulating and exploring network behavior.

What are ActivityPub Networks?

ActivityPub is a technical specification towards decentralized (more precisely, federated) social networking (termed the Fediverse) based upon the exchange of ActivityStreams messages that follow the Activity Vocabulary. The ActivityPub proposal has been standardized and published by the W3C and has motivated the design of several federated social networking systems.

Open Risk White Paper 14: Integrated energy accounting using relational databases

In this Open Risk White Paper we demonstrate a concrete implementation of an integrated energy accounting framework using relational database technologies. The framework enables accounting of non-financial disclosures (such as the physical and embodied energy footprints of economic transactions) while enforcing the familiar double-entry balance constraints used to produce conventional (monetary) accounts and financial statements. In addition, it allows enforcing constraints associated with the flow and transformations of energy that can happen inside the organizational perimeter.

Open Risk White Paper 13: Federated Credit Systems, Part II: Techniques for Federated Data Analysis

In this Open Risk White Paper, the second of series focusing on Federated Credit Systems, we explore techniques for federated credit data analysis. Building on the first paper where we outlined the overall architecture, essential actors and information flows underlying various business models of credit provision, in this step we focus on the enabling arrangements and techniques for building Federated Credit Data Systems and enabling Federated Analysis.

Integrated Energy Accounting is keeping track and reporting on an entity’s detailed energy footprint (primary inputs, transformations and waste generation) not as an addendum to financial accounting and reporting but as a deeply-linked extension that is subject to the same level of rigor.

Open Risk White Paper 12: Deep-Linking Financial and Energy Accounting

We develop a conceptual framework for integrated accounting that produces (where possible) non-financial disclosures subject to the same double-entry balance constraints as those used to produce conventional financial statements and automatically ensures any additional conservation laws are satisfied. We identify the key ingredients required for such a rigorous integrated accounting framework, in terms of concepts, postulates and design choices. Our focus and concrete use case is built around energy accounting, keeping track on an entity’s detailed energy footprint (primary inputs, transformations and waste generation) as an extension of its standard financial accounting and reporting. The central tool is the use of multidimensional double-entry bookkeeping which tracks quantitative information characterizing economic objects beyond their monetary values. This choice ensures the enforcement of both classic balance constraints and any applicable energy conservation laws. Further tools and techniques concern the aggregation and reporting of dual (monetary and physical) dimensions of an entity’s accounting state. The framework is documented using mathematical notation.

The frontpage graphic is adapted from Steffen et al. “Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet”. Science (2015). The Planetary Boundaries concept was proposed in 2009 by this group of Earth system and environmental scientists. The group suggested that finding a “safe operating space for humanity” is a precondition for sustainable development. The framework is based on scientific evidence that human actions since the Industrial Revolution have become the main driver of global environmental change.

Open Risk White Paper 11: Sustainable Portfolio Management: Attribution and Allocation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We develop an analytic framework that synthesizes current approaches to sustainable portfolio management in the context of addressing climate change. We discuss the different required information layers, approaches to emissions accounting, attribution and forward-looking limit frameworks implementing carbon budget constraints.

Open Risk White Paper 10: Connecting the Dots: Concentration, diversity, inequality and sparsity in economic networks

In this second Open Risk White Paper on Connecting the Dots we examine measures of concentration, diversity, inequality and sparsity in the context of economic systems represented as network (graph) structures. We adopt a stylized description of economies as property graphs and illustrate how relevant concepts can be represented in this language. We explore in some detail data types representing economic network data and their statistical nature which is critical in their use in concentration analysis. We proceed to recast various known indexes drawn from distinct disciplines in a unified computational context.

Concentration, diversity, inequality and sparsity in the context of economic networks

In this second Open Risk White Paper on Connecting the Dots we examine measures of concentration, diversity, inequality and sparsity in the context of economic systems represented as network (graph) structures. We adopt a stylized description of economies as property graphs and illustrate how relevant concepts can represent in this language. We explore in some detail data types representing economic network data and their statistical nature which is critical in their use in concentration analysis. We proceed to recast various known indexes drawn from distinct disciplines in a unified computational context.

Federated Credit Systems, Part I: Unbundling the Credit Provision Business Model

As an architectural design and information technology approach, federation has received increased attention in domains such as the medical sector (under the name federated analysis), in official statistics (under the name trusted data) and in mass computing devices (smartphones), under the name federated learning.

Open Risk White Paper 9: Federated Credit Systems, Part I: Unbundling The Credit Provision Business Model

In this (the first of series of three) white paper, we introduce and explore the concept of federated credit systems. We review the rapidly developing fields of Federated Analysis and Federated Learning as already actively studied in the domains of medicine and consumer computing devices. This forms the backdrop for understanding the potential and challenges of applying similar concepts in finance and more particular credit provision. The context of modern banking is substantially different from the above-mentioned use cases. Understanding and shaping federated information systems to cater to its unique features and constraints (key added value, competitive landscape, regulatory frameworks) will help accelerate the adoption of new designs. Towards that purpose we construct a framework that conceptually unbundles the complex operation that is modern credit provision. We introduce a number of fundamental business entities (subunits) and their associated functions and discuss the underlying business models. We discuss, in particular, how and why they exchange data and metrics and the key risk management challenges of each. Finally, we sketch current architectures for credit information sharing with an overture to the new possibilities opening up with federation architectures.

Connecting the Dots: Economic Networks as Property Graphs

We develop a quantitative framework that approaches economic networks from the point of view of contractual relationships between agents (and the interdependencies those generate). The representation of agent properties, transactions and contracts is done in the context of a property graph.

A typical use case for the proposed framework is the study of credit networks.

Open Risk White Paper 8: Connecting the Dots, Economic Networks as Property Graphs

We develop a quantitative framework that approaches economic networks from the point of view of contractual relationships between agents (and the interdependencies those generate). The representation of agent properties, transactions and contracts is done in the context of a property graph. A typical use case for the proposed framework is the study of credit networks.

Is the IFRS 9 or CECL standard more volatile? Its all relative

Objective

In this study we compare the volatility of reported profit-and-loss (PnL) for credit portfolios when those are measured (accounted for) following respectively the IFRS 9 and CECL accounting standards.

The objective is to assess the impact of a key methodological difference between the two standards, the so-called Staging approach of IFRS 9. There are further explicit differences in the two standards. Importantly, given the standards are not prescriptive, it is very likely that there will be material differences in interpretation and implementation of the principles (for example on the nature and construction of scenarios). In this study we perform a controlled comparison adopting a ‘ceteris-paribus’ mentality: We assume that all other implementation details are similar and we focus on the impact of the Staging approach.

Credit Portfolio PnL volatility under IFRS 9 and CECL

Objective

We explore conceptually a selection of key structural drivers of profit-and-loss (PnL) volatility for credit portfolios when profitability is measured following the principles underpinning the new IFRS 9 / CECL standards

Methodology

We setup stylized calculations for a credit portfolio with the following main parameters and assumptions:

Credit Portfolio Management in the IFRS 9 / CECL and Stress Testing Era

The post-crisis world presents portfolio managers with the significant challenge to asimilate in day-to-day management the variety of conceptual frameworks now simultaneously applicable in the assessment of portfolio credit risk:

• The first major strand is the widespread application of regulatory stress testing methodologies in the estimation of regulatory risk capital requirements
• The second major strand is the introduction of new accounting standards (IFRS 9 / CECL) for the measurement and disclosure of expected credit losses While both Regulatory Stress Testing and IFRS 9 / CECL accounting require investment in analytic capabilities and provide unique new insights, both are aimed at satisfying evolving prudential or investor disclosure requirements. Neither is designed to help credit portfolio managers analyse and steer their portfolios in the bottom-up fashion that is an essential part their mandate.

The above developments are overlaid into pre-existing conceptual and practical frameworks such as