Box 5: Safeguarding financial stability in the case of resolution

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Safeguarding financial stability in the case of resolution

In the context of resolution planning, the resolution authority needs to decide whether resolution is in the public interest. The Recovery and Resolution Act (RRA), transposing the European Recovery and Resolution Directive (2014 / 59 / EU – BRRD), provides a framework for addressing the “too-big-to-fail” (TBTF) issue and hence contributes to strengthening the stability of the Liechtenstein financial system. Against this background, the resolution authority is, amongst others, tasked with drawing up resolution plans. However, resolution action can only be taken if it is in the public interest. For this reason, the resolution authority needs to assess the resolution objectives according to Art. 37 RRA. If all of the five resolution objectives can be achieved without resolution proceedings, the respective bank will be winded up under normal insolvency proceedings in case of its failure.

This box represents an overview of the analytical framework of “resolution objective 2”. To assess the fulfilment of the resolution objective “avoidance of significant adverse effects on financial stability” pursuant to Article 37 para. 2 no. b of the Restructuring and Resolution Act (RRA) in the context of the resolution planning phase, the Macroprudential Supervision Unit of the FMA provides a preliminary opinion on whether an institution’s market exit through insolvency proceedings could have significant negative effects on the financial system and the real economy. The assessment is based on a simplified procedure compared to the public interest assessment (PIA), which authorities conduct in case an institution is failing or likely to fail (FOLTF). It is also without prejudice to the result of the PIA, as future PIA’s may yield different results.

To fulfil the resolution objective, it must be achieved that “a significant adverse effect on the financial system, in particular by preventing contagion, including to market infrastructures, and by maintaining market discipline” can be avoided in case of an institution’s failure. The methodology used to assess whether an institution’s exit is likely to have significant negative effects on financial stability is derived from an analysis by the Austrian Central Bank (OeNB).50 In their paper, the authors set up an assessment framework with four main financial stability criteria (financial market conditions, economic importance, direct contagion and indirect contagion) by using around 30 different indicators. Since the setting of explicit thresholds is a complex task51 , the paper proposes a methodological approach for calibrating explicit thresholds for each of these indicators in order to assess the systemic importance of banks. This approach is applied with certain adjustments to Liechtenstein.

A basic assumption behind the applied methodology is the idea of substitutability. If market activities (such as payment services, granting loans, receiving deposits, etc.) of a failing bank can be absorbed promptly by other market participants, financial stability will not be at risk. More specifically, substitutability is assessed by comparing the volume of services provided by each bank with the average historical quarterly changes of the aggregated market volume. As the substitution of bank activities, and thus, the BOX 5

50 Eidenberger et al. (2019). Who puts our financial system at risk? A methodological approach to identify banks with potential significant negative effects on financial stability. Financial Stability Report 37, June 2019. Oesterreichische Nationalbank. 51 The current macroprudential policy framework does include guidelines on certain indicators, but no explicit thresholds for individual indicators (e.g. O-SII thresholds are determined implicitly, see EBA / GL / 2014 / 10).

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Financial Stability Report 2022 BEGINNING OF THE CHAPTER TABLE OF CONTENT

BOX 5

consequences of a bank failure for the economy and the financial system also depend on the current phase of the economic cycle, the current conditions on financial markets also need to be considered.

Specifics of the Liechtenstein banking sector have to be considered in the assessment. Liechtenstein’s

banking sector is small but highly concentrated. Against this background, the identification of systemically important banks and whether their failure will lead to significant adverse effects may be more intuitive compared to countries with many banks (e.g. Austria). Given the domestic banking sector specifics and the fact that the quarterly time series used to identify thresholds for the Liechtenstein banking sector are shorter than in other countries, the OeNB’s methodology is adapted with regard to the selection of indicators and the calculation of certain thresholds. In addition, in

certain cases, we apply expert judgement to explicitly consider country specifics. For certain indicators, proportionality limits are also taken into account. The results of this assessment were considered in the

respective resolution plans.