Croatia

testing. The adverse scenario is plausible because the considered values have been already observed. That brings our hypothetical adverse scenario closer to reality, maybe at the expense of the severity of the shock.⁴ The scenarios consider two sources of risk: the credit risk and the market risk (divided into the interest rate and the exchange rate risks). For each sector the baseline and the adverse scenarios are the same.

The results of the models are the estimated probabilities of default (default rates) that will be further used in the computations of the credit risk losses on the individual bank’s level.

Table 5.1: Explanatory variables that enter the credit risk models for the actual, the baseline and the adverse scenarios in Croa-tia.

Corporate sector Time lag Actual (%) Baseline (%) Adverse (%)

g hr -4 -6.9 -0.6 -6.7

r -4 439 -12 18

π -3 1.0 3.4 6.4

er usd -2 13.3 -10.6 - 4.0

Household sector Time lag Actual (%) Baseline (%) Adverse (%)

g hr -2 -0.05 0.02 -5.7

u -3 26.8 23.9 36.3

π -5 3.8 1.4 1.4

Source: Author’s computations. The actual scenario refers to Q2 2010, the baseline and the adverse scenarios to Q4 2011. Variablesg hr,er usd,u,r andπrepresent the growth rates of the Croatian GDP, the HRK/USD exchange rate, the unemployment rate, the real interest rate, and the inflation, respectively. The values are showed with respect to time lag in which they appear in the model (for example, Croatian GDP growth rate of -6.9% is the value of Q2 2009 that due to time lag appears in the model that estimates Q2 2010 situation).

The economic conditions regarding the market risk at the end of 2011 are described in Table 5.2. For the calculation of the bank’s interest rate losses the CNB’s key interest rate is relevant. The CNB has not changed it since 2008 and it was announced that the rate would not change in the first half of 2011.

We assume that the rate will rest on 9% until the end of 2011 for the baseline scenario. For the exchange rate losses we use the projected exchange rates of kuna against the US dollar and the euro from the BMI’s forecasts. These are 7.01 and 5.27 HRK/EUR and HRK/USD, respectively.⁸ The rates reflect the appreciation of kuna. The comparison to the situation in Q4 2010 is provided in the table. The overall baseline scenario suggests that in 2011 Croatia might experience the economic recovery.

In the adverse scenario we have changed all variables except for the inflation in the case of the households, due to its time lag. Especially, the growth rates of GDP and the real interest rate demonstrate highly different paths relative

8Note that conversely to the credit risk, in the case of the market risk there are no time lags.

Table 5.2: Variables that enter the market risk’s computation for the actual, the baseline and the adverse scenarios in Croatia.

Actual Baseline Adverse

i cnb 9% 9% 11%

Change to actual scenario – +0% +2%

er eur 7.39 7.01 7.29

Change to actual scenario – -0.38 -0.10

er usd 5.57 5.27 5.00

Change to actual scenario – -0.30 -0.57

Source: Author’s computations. The actual scenario refers to Q4 2010, the baseline and the adverse scenarios to Q4 2011. Variables i cnb, er eur and er usd indicate the CNB’s key interest rate, the HRK/EUR and the HRK/USD exchange rates. The values of the baseline and the adverse scenarios will serve as inputs in the computations of individual bank’s losses from the market risk.

to the baseline scenario. The adverse scenario reflects the prolongation of the crisis from 2008 or, more specifically, its return after the relatively good conditions in 2010. The influence of 2010 values in the 2011 estimations via the credit risk models causes that the effect of the shock on the default rates is noticeable only in the end of 2011. The default rates in the adverse scenario show the same trend as in the baseline scenario, except for the end–of–year values. Yet, in the two–year horizon the effect of the shock could be fully translated into the deterioration of the default rates. Specifically, we assume the negative domestic GDP growth rate of more than 5% through the whole year, the situation experienced in 2009. We let the inflation and the unemployment rate to increase, the situation that was observable in some periods of the recent crisis in Croatia. We suppose also that the CNB perceived increasing inflation and that it aims to fight it by elevating its interest rate. The result is the increase of banks’ interest rates. The intervention does not lower the inflation until the end of the year, which in our credit risk model would be noticeable in 2012.

For the market risk calculation the input variables in the adverse scenario are chosen as follows: Assuming the CNB’s efforts to lower inflation, we in-crease its base interest rate for 2%. The inin-crease will negatively affect banks’

available–for–sale securities in the balance sheets. It will affect also the interest income that arises from the maturity gap between interest sensitive assets and liabilities, however with the uncertain impact. For the exchange rate risk we assume the two main exchange rates, kuna against euro and kuna against US

dollar. They are set according to the 2009 values. For the both cases the kuna appreciates relative to the Q4 2010 values. The impact of the exchange rates on the banks’ portfolio will depend on the net open foreign exchange (FX) position of the bank in the particular currency. The credit risk default rates arisen from the scenarios are depicted in Figures 5.1 and 5.2 in Section 5.2.1.