Fitch says coming regulations will create cash management challenges for treasurers and also change the nature of bank relationships.
Trouble finding yield isn’t the only challenge treasurers face in the current low-interest rate environment. There are also quite a few regulatory challenges, according to Fitch Ratings. These regulatory tests will also change the dynamic of banking relations, meaning freebies from banks to attract other business is definitely a thing of the past, Fitch said.
Challenges arising from Basel III and money market fund reform will be the main hurdles going forward. Fitch said Basel III’s leverage, liquidity coverage and net stable funds ratios “will transform the relationship between corporate treasury departments and their banks by changing the characteristics of some of their most popular transactions.” Fitch added that money market reform also looms, “which could further limit access to a perceived safer and more flexible cash management alternative.”
Fitch said Basel III’s liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) will be the big challenge for banks as they will be required to hold more high-quality assets to ensure the necessary assets are on hand to ride out short-term liquidity disruptions. Although the Basel Committee suggests LCR to be phased in between 2015 and 2018, banks are adhering now rather than later. As such they are “steering internal liquidity management around LCR guidance.”
“Banks’ greater focus on pricing for risk means that they are less likely to offer lending lines as a ‘loss leader’ to build cash management and deposit relationships with corporate clients,” Fitch said. “Under Basel III’s leverage and liquidity requirements, this strategy becomes less attractive even for large, highly rated companies.”
It is no wonder companies have flooded the debt markets to raise funds because challenges banks face as a result of coming regulations will make doing business with them much trickier. Fitch further details a few of the reasons banks will could be more difficult to deal with when it comes to the corporate clients:
- The leverage ratio (which is similar to the one already applied in the U.S. but new to European banks) requires banks to set aside capital even against lower risk assets.
- The liquidity ratios will make corporate cash deposits a less attractive and more expensive form of funding for banks.
- Under the net stable funding ratio (NSFR), long-term corporate loans and other long-term assets will need to be matched by long-term funding, and under the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR), banks will have to hold high quality liquid assets (e.g. Treasuries) against a portion of these deposits.
Also, new LCR rules will likely send transaction prices higher, not to mention shockwaves through an already jittery money market fund industry, as banks start steering clear of short-term funding.
“The LCR calculation assumes a run-off rate of 40% (reduced from 75% in January) for short-term, unsecured wholesale deposits from larger, nonfinancial entities. This is changing the economics and incentives for bank funding away from short-term, wholesale sources to longer-term funding and liabilities that receive more favorable treatment under the LCR calculation, such as retail deposits. The LCR also assumes that a certain portion of unfunded commitments will be drawn in a stress scenario, adding further pressure on the costs of committed liquidity and credit facilities.”