With the banking industry in flux and the credit business at its core, Credit Portfolio Management is a timely and practical guide on how to successfully manage a credit portfolio in light of a challenging market environment and increased regulatory scrutiny.
Structured in line with a credit value chain, part I deals with the framework in which credit risk is originated and managed. It comprises of three chapters: a brief description of the role that credit risk played in the financial crisis and thereafter; the credit risk strategies which aim at optimizing the risk/return profile of the portfolio under the condition of adequate capital; and finally an introduction to stress tests which support a proactive and forward looking approach to portfolio management by allowing the quantification of improbable but plausible outcomes.
In Part II, conceptual aspects of an Active Credit Portfolio Management (ACPM) are discussed. It ranges from the description of the value proposition to a full credit cycle approach to portfolio management. Since in most organizations a loan transfer pricing scheme underpins the internal role of ACPM to optimize the risk and the return side of credit portfolio, it is given due consideration. Part II also reviews practical aspects of the implementation of ACPM, and dedicates a chapter to the accounting symmetry of credit derivative hedges and loans. It concludes with an overview of regulatory capital relief.
Part III focuses on the back end management of a credit portfolio where corrective actions are usually carried out by use of controversial credit default swaps. Michael provides a non technical, detailed description of CDS as a hedging tool for credit portfolio managers whilst also introducing other hedge instruments such as Loan CDS and sub-participations.
A number of case studies are used throughout the book to illustrate the various topics in a real world setting.

Debt is the hidden engine driving undocumented migration to the United States. So argues David Stoll in this powerful chronicle of migrants, moneylenders, and swindlers in the Guatemalan highlands, one of the locales that, collectively, are sending millions of Latin Americans north in search of higher wages. As an anthropologist, Stoll has witnessed the Ixil Mayas of Nebaj grow in numbers, run out of land, and struggle to find employment. Aid agencies have provided microcredits to turn the Nebajenses into entrepreneurs, but credit alone cannot boost productivity in crowded mountain valleys, which is why many recipients have invested the loans in smuggling themselves to the United States. Back home, their remittances have inflated the price of land so high that only migrants can afford to buy it. Thus, more Nebajenses have felt obliged to borrow the large sums needed to go north. So many have done so that, even before the Great Recession hit the U.S. in 2008, many were unable to find enough work to pay back their loans, triggering a financial crash back home. Now migrants and their families are losing the land and homes they have pledged as collateral. Chain migration, moneylending, and large families, Stoll proposes, have turned into pyramid schemes in which the poor transfer risk and loss to their near and dear.

This annual publication provides an overview of the most important developments in global credit markets and the regulatory landscape. It covers theoretical and empirical research on credit ratings and credit risk, and reports on recent findings and evolutions of the Risk Management Institute's Credit Research Initiative. The ultimate objective of this publication is to advance the state of research and development in the critical area of credit risk and rating systems. With a distinctive focus on topics related to credit markets and credit risk, this publication will be useful to finance professionals, policy makers and academics with an interest in credit markets.

A breakthrough methodology for profiting in the high-yield and distressed debt market

Global advances in technology give investors and asset managers more information at their fingertips than ever before. With "Quantitative Analytics in Debt Valuation and Management," you can join the elite club of quantitative investors who know how to use that information to beat the market and their competitors.

This powerful guide shows you how to sharpen your analytical process by considering valuable information hidden in the prices of related assets. "Quantitative Analytics in Debt Valuation and Management" reveals a progressive framework incorporating debt valuation based on the interrelationships among the equity, bond, and options markets. Using this cutting-edge method in conjunction with traditional debt and equity analysis, you will reduce portfolio risk, find assets with the highest returns, and generate dramatically greater profits from your transactions.

This book's "fat-free" presentation and easy-to-navigate format jump-starts busy professionals on their way to mastering proven techniques to: Determine the "equity risk" inherent in corporate debt to establish the causal relationship between a company's debt, equity, and asset values Price and analyze corporate debt in real time by going beyond traditional methods for computing capital requirements and anticipated losses Look with an insider's eye at risk management challenges facing banks, hedge funds, and other institutions operating with financial leverage Avoid the mistakes of other investors who contribute to the systemic risk in the financial system

Additionally, you will be well prepared for the real world with the book's focus on practical application and clear case studies. Step-by-step, you will see how to improve bond pricing and hedge debt with equity, and how selected investment management strategies perform when the model is used to drive decision making.

The definitive history of pawnbroking in the United States from the nation's founding through the Great Depression, "In Hock" demonstrates that the pawnshop was essential to the rise of capitalism. The class of working poor created by this economic tide could make ends meet only, Wendy A. Woloson argues, by regularly pawning household objects to supplement inadequate wages. Nonetheless, businessmen, reformers, and cultural critics claimed that pawnshops promoted vice, and employed anti-Semitic stereotypes to cast their proprietors as greedy and cold-hearted. Using personal correspondence, business records, and other rich archival sources to uncover the truth behind the rhetoric, Woloson brings to life a diverse cast of characters and shows that pawnbrokers were in fact shrewd businessmen, often from humble origins, who possessed sophisticated knowledge of a wide range of goods in various resale markets. A much-needed new look at a misunderstood institution, "In Hock" is both a first-rate academic study of a largely ignored facet of the capitalist economy and a resonant portrait of the economic struggles of generations of Americans.

"The recent collapse of the mortgage market revealed fractures in the credit market that have deep roots in the system's structure, conduct, and regulation. The time has come for a clear-eyed assessment of what happened and how the system should be strengthened and restructured. Such reform will have a profound and lasting impact on the capacity of Americans to use credit to build assets and finance consumption. Moving Forward explores what caused the crisis and, more important, focuses on the path ahead. The challenge remains the same as ever: protect consumers, ensure fairness, and guarantee soundness of the financial system without stifling innovation and overly restricting access to credit and consumer choice. Nicolas Retsinas, Eric Belsky, and their colleagues aim to stimulate debate based on analysis of the opportunities and challenges presented by the various components of global capital markets: financial engineering, risk assessment and management, specialization of financial intermediation, and marketing methods. The contributors-leaders in business, government, academia, and the nonprofit sector-discuss new research and ideas about the future of credit markets, including how improvements might be shaped by industry leaders. Contributors: John Y. Campbell, Harvard University; Marsha J. Courchane, Charles River Associates; Ren Essene, Federal Reserve Board; Allen Fishbein, Federal Reserve Board; Howell E. Jackson, Harvard Law School; Melissa Koide, Center for Financial Services Innovation; Michael Lea, San Diego State University; Eugene Ludwig, Promontory Financial Group; Brigitte C. Madrian, Harvard Kennedy School; Nela Richardson, Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University; Rachel Schneider, Center for Financial Services Innovation; Peter Tufano, Harvard Business School; Peter M. Zorn, Freddie Mac "

GMAC is a diversified financial services firm that derives its revenues from automotive finance, where it holds a dominant position, as well as mortgage operations, insurance operations, and commercial finance. The U.S. government has spent a total of $17.2 billion to support GMAC under the TARP. GMAC received funds on three separate occasions, spanning both the Bush and Obama Administrations. As part of the government bail-out effort, GMAC has received special treatment apart from the funds in order to meet the capital buffers established under the bank "stress tests" because it could not raise funds from private sources. This book examines the unique treatment given GMAC under the TARP.

Loan sharks may conjure up an image of tough guys in fedoras looking to make a profit off of desperate people in dire financial straits, but in reality, lenders who advance small sums of cash at high interest rates until payday existed long before organized crime entered the trade. Today the businesses that fill this niche in the credit market prefer the name 'payday lenders' rather than loan sharks, but most large cities are still a hotbed of usurious lending, and the landscapes are dotted with their inviting and brightly colored storefronts. Despite their more respectable name, these predatory lenders have endured through regulation, prohibition, and the rise and fall of the mob since the late 1800s. In this intriguing and accessible book, Mayer aptly assesses the consequences of high-interest lending--both for the people who borrow at such steep prices and for society as a whole. He argues that although some consumers gain from borrowing at high rates, payday lending in its modern form consistently traps many of the wage earners who pawn their postdated checks, leaving them worse off than they were before. Because payday lending regulations vary widely throughout the country, Mayer chose to focus his story on Chicago, a city that serves as a fine representative of the legacy of loan sharking. "Quick Cash "will engage policy analysts, economists, and regional historians, as wells as general readers interested in the fascinating story behind these unscrupulous lending operations that feed off America's current tough economic times.

In the US and UK, saving and borrowing routines have changed radically and become closely bound-up with the capital markets of global finance. As mutual funds have increased in popularity and pension provision has been transformed, many more individuals and households have come to invest in stocks and shares. As consumer borrowing has risen dramatically and mortgage finance has been extended to those deemed sub-prime, so the repayments of credit card holders and mortgagors have provided the basis for the issue and trading of bonds and other market instruments.
The Everyday Life of Global Finance explores the unprecedented relationships that now bind society and the markets, challenging the dominant tendency to simply position recent developments in Wall Street and the City of London at the centre of contemporary finance. Grounded in literature from the sociology of finance and international political economy, drawing on the social theory of Callon, Foucault, and Latour, and informed by extensive empirical research, the book shows how global finance has become mundane and ordinary in Anglo-America. Finance is not 'out there somewhere', but is embedded in the calculative technologies and performances of reconfigured saving and borrowing networks, and is embodied through the assembly of everyday financial identities and self-disciplines. Society's new-found relationships with the financial markets are also shown, however, to be marked by stark inequalities, manifest contradictions, and political dissent.
The Everyday Life of Global Finance is thus an ambitious and innovative contribution to our understanding of the contemporary financial world.

This book discusses the three amendments that the SEC Commission is proposing that would impose additional requirements on nationally recognised statistical rating organisations ("NRSROs") in order to address concerns about the integrity of their credit rating procedures in the light of the role they played in determining credit ratings for securities collateralised by or linked to subprime residential mortgages. The Commission today makes a proposal related to structured finance products rating symbology. Thirdly, this book discusses the rule amendments that the Commission intends to propose that would be intended to reduce undue reliance in the Commission's rules on NRSRO ratings. In August 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission's Staff initiated examinations of three credit rating agencies, to review their role in the recent turmoil in the subprime mortgage-related securities markets. The purpose of the examinations was to develop an understanding of the practices of the rating agencies surrounding the rating of RMBS and CDOs. This book includes a summary report by the Commission's Staff of the issues identified in those examinations. Finally, an overview of the subprime mortgage securitisation process is provided as well as the seven key informational frictions that arise. Ways that market participants work to minimise these frictions is discussed and how this process broke down is speculated. Key structural features of a typical subprime securitisation is presented, and how rating agencies assign credit ratings to mortgage-backed securities is documented. How these agencies monitor the performance of mortgage pools over time is also outlined.

In this book, the authors provide an overview of the sub-prime mortgage securitisation process and the seven key informational frictions that arise. They discuss the ways that market participants work to minimise these frictions and speculate on how this process broke down. They continue with a complete picture of the sub-prime borrower and the sub-prime loan, discussing both predatory borrowing and predatory lending. They present the key structural features of a typical sub-prime securitisation, document how rating agencies assign credit ratings to mortgage-backed securities, and outline how these agencies monitor the performance of mortgage pools over time.

Credit and Community examines the history of consumer credit and debt in working class communities. Concentrating on forms of credit that were traditionally very dependent on personal relationships and social networks, such as mail-order catalogues and co-operatives, it demonstrates how community-based arrangements declined as more impersonal forms of borrowing emerged during the twentieth century.
Tallymen and check traders moved into doorstep money-lending during the 1960s, but in subsequent decades the loss of their best working class customers, owing to increased spending power and the emergence of a broader range of credit alternatives, forced them to focus on the 'financially excluded'. This 'sub-prime' market was open for exploitation by unlicensed lenders, and Sean O'Connell offers the first detailed historical investigation of illegal money-lending in the UK, encompassing the 'she usurers' of Edwardian Liverpool and the violent loan sharks of Blair's Britain.
O'Connell contrasts such commercial forms of credit with formal and informal co-operative alternatives, such as "diddlum clubs," "partners," and mutuality clubs. He provides the first history of the UK credit unions, revealing the importance of Irish and Caribbean immigrant volunteers, and explains the relative failure of the movement compared with Ireland.
Drawing on a wide range of neglected sources, including the archives of consumer credit companies, the records of the co-operative and credit union movements, and government papers, Credit and Community makes a strong contribution to historical understandings of credit and debt. Oral history testimony from both sides of the credit divide is used totelling effect, offering key insights into the complex nature of the relationship between borrowers and lenders.

How anyone can earn top dollar selling retail mortgages The High-Income Mortgage Originator is a comprehensive guide to a rewarding career in sales in the rapidly growing mortgage industry. Unlike other books on this topic which focus on technical information about the job of originating mortgages, this book is about how to sell more. It describes industry best practices and explains what it takes to succeed in the exciting world of mortgage origination. Giannamore exposes the inner workings of the loan process and the secrets of creating a successful mortgage business, enabling readers to start earning money immediately. The book covers the basics of marketing, selling, and customer service. It provides readers with the expertise needed to make selling mortgages a rewarding career. Richard Giannamore (Wolcott, CT) is President and CEO of Mortgage Services, Inc. and has over 20 years of experience in the business. He is also CEO of Financial Program Strategies, Inc., and creator of the $-Road to Riches-$(r) education seminars. Barbara Bordow Osach, MBA (Woodbridge, CT) is a consultant to Mortgage Services, Inc. who has designed training and best practices documents for numerous industries.

Grounded in literature from the sociology of finance and international political economy, and informed by extensive empirical research, The Everyday Life of Global Finance explores the unprecedented relationships that now bind Anglo-American society with the financial markets. As mutual funds have increased in popularity and pension provision has been transformed, many more individuals and households have come to invest in stocks and shares. As consumer borrowing has risen dramatically and mortgage finance has embraced those deemed sub-prime, so the repayments of credit card holders and mortgagors have provided the basis for the issue and trading of bonds and other market instruments.
The Everyday Life of Global Finance is an ambitious and innovative contribution to our understanding of the contemporary financial world. It shows how financial market networks have come to extend well beyond Wall Street and the City of London, becoming embedded and embodied in routine saving and borrowing in the US and UK. Society's new-found relationships with the markets are also shown, however, to be marked by stark inequalities, manifest contradictions, and political dissent.

This book represents the latest developments and policy debate on a very current issue: the rapid growth of banking sector credit to the private sector, which continues to occupy the minds of academics and policymakers alike in many Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The contributions, from the representatives of international organizations and monetary and supervisory authorities of a number of Western and CEE countries, discuss ways to assess and respond to excessive credit growth. Case studies represent the challenges faced by policymakers in dealing with rapid credit growth, providing useful lessons for other countries experiencing a similar phenomenon.

Pawning was the most common credit mechanism in Mexico City in the nineteenth century. A diverse, largely female pawning clientele from lower- and middle-class households regularly secured small consumption loans by hocking household goods. A two-tiered sector of public and private pawnbrokers provided collateral credit. Rather than just providing emergency subsistence for the poor, pawnbroking facilitated consumption by Creole and mestizo middle sectors of Mexican society and enhanced identity formation for those in middling households by allowing them to cash in on material investments to maintain status during lean times. "A Culture of Everyday Credit" shows how Mexican women have depended on credit to run their households since the Bourbon era and how the collateral credit business of pawnbroking developed into a profitable enterprise built on the demand for housekeeping loans as restrictions on usury waned during the nineteenth century.

Pairing the study of household consumption with a detailed analysis of the rise of private and public pawnbroking provides an original context for understanding the role of small business in everyday life. Marie Eileen Francois weighs colonial reforms, liberal legislation, and social revolution in terms of their impact on households and pawning businesses.

Based on evidence from pawnshop inventories, censuses, legislation, petitions, literature, and newspapers, "A Culture of Everyday Credit" portrays households, small businesses, and government entities as intersecting arenas in one material world, a world strapped for cash throughout most of the century and turned upside down during the Mexican Revolution.

The book develops an economic framework for assessing different cooperative payment schemes.

Most readers, especially those with car loans or home mortgages, know about 'collateral' property that the lender can take away from the borrower in the event that the borrower defaults. In low/middle income countries, it is understood that conservative lenders exclude firms from credit markets with their excessive collateral requirements. Usually, this is because only some property is acceptable as collateral: large holdings of urban real estate and, sometimes, new motor vehicles. Microenterprises, SMEs, and the poor have little of this property but they do have an array of productive assets that could easily be harnessed to serve as collateral. It is only the legal framework which prevents firms from using these assets to secure loans. In countries with reformed laws governing collateral, property such as equipment, inventory, accounts receivable, and livestock are considered excellent collateral. This book aims to better equip project managers to implement reforms to the legal and institutional framework for collateral (secured transactions). It discusses the importance of movable property as a source of collateral for firms, the relationship between the legal framework governing movable assets and the financial sector consequences for firms (better loan terms, increased access, more competitive financial sector), and how reforms can be put in place to change the lending environment."

'Enterprise Size, Financing Patterns, and Credit Constraints in Brazil' investigates the importance of firm size with respect to accessing credit. The principal findings are that size strongly affects access to credit compared to firm performance, and other factors, such as management education, location or the industrial sector to which the firm belongs. Additional findings are that the impact of size on access to credit is greater for longer term loans and that public financial institutions are more likely to lend to large firms. Finally, financial access constraints may have a less significant differential impact across firms of different sizes than other constraints, though cost of finance as a constraint is very important.

CreditRisk+ is an important and widely implemented default-mode model of portfolio credit risk, based on a methodology borrowed from actuarial mathematics. This book gives an account of the status quo as well as of new and recent developments of the credit risk model CreditRisk+, which is widely used in the banking industry. It gives an introduction to the model itself and to its ability to describe, manage and price credit risk. The book is intended for an audience of practitioners in banking and finance, as well as for graduate students and researchers in the field of financial mathematics and banking. It contains carefully refereed contributions from experts in the field, selected for mutual consistency and edited for homogeneity of style, notation, etc. The discussion ranges from computational methods and extensions for special forms of credit business to statistical calibrations and practical implementations. This unique and timely book constitutes an indispensable tool for both practitioners and academics working in the evaluation of credit risk.

Todays most complete, up-to-date reference for controlling credit risk exposure of all types, in every environment

While credit risk may be the oldest source of risk in the financial markets, todays fastchanging regulations and transformative technologies present investment banks with problems that are new and daunting. The Standard & Poors Guide to Measuring and Managing Credit Risk provides financial professionals with a comprehensive course on all aspects of todays increasingly complex credit risk environment, along with newer tools and strategies they can use to identify, measure, monitor, and control risk.

Moving far beyond the Basel guidelines, this in-depth guide takes a global view of the issue, explaining how credit risk is linked more than ever to markets and how to manage it accordingly. Filled with trusted Standard & Poors data and insight, this hands-on book discusses:

• Three types of default correlation and how to address each
  
• Quantitative approaches for default risk modeling
  
• Derivative and securitization techniques for increasing liquidity
  

The Microfinance Poverty Assessment Tool was developed as a much-needed tool to increase transparency on the depth of outreach of microfinance institutions (MFIs). It is intended to assist donors and investors to integrate a poverty focus into their appraisals and funding of financial institutions through a more precise understanding of the clients served by these institutions. Used in conjunction with an institutional appraisal of financial sustainability, governance, management, staff and systems, a poverty assessment allows for a more holistic understanding of an MFI. The Tool provides accurate data on the poverty levels of MFI clients relative to people living in the same community. It uses a more standardized, globally applicable, and rigorous set of indicators than those used by conventional microfinance targeting tools. The tool employs principal component analysis to construct a multidimensional poverty index that allows the poverty outreach of MFIs to be compared within and across countries. Originally field tested in four countries on three continents, it has subsequently been applied by microfinance donors and MFI networks in numerous other countries. Although the Microfinance Poverty Assessment Tool was designed for microfinance, it can also be used to measure the poverty levels of clients of other development programs.

This is the authoritative collection of the writings of Dr. Edward I. Altman, the world's leading authority on bankruptcy, corporate distress, and defaults, and creator of the widely-used Z-Score model. This book contains both classic and never-before-published articles, along with Altman's comprehensive introduction that places all the articles in context.

The four major and related themes explored here are:
Distress Prediction Models.
Credit Risk Management.
High Yield "Junk" Bonds and Distressed Securities.
Bankruptcy and Firm Valuation.

These articles span more than 30 years of contributions to scholarly and professional publications and for government regulatory and policy considerations. Altman's pioneering works have formed the basis for modern credit risk management procedures and policies by practitioners and regulators, and have motivated and guided works from other scholars around the globe.

Gianturco examines the roles played by export credit agencies (ECAs) which are specialized financial institutions that cover some $1 trillion of exports each year. In terms of their financial impact on international trade, these agencies are unsurpassed, but rarely do they receive attention in the financial press or broader recognition.

In this book Gianturco uncovers the ECAs--revealing and explaining their history, role, functions, and controversies regarding their missions. There are currently some 90 countries with official ECAs; two-thirds of these countries can be classified as developing or transitional nations; the remainder include the major developed countries. ECAs provide loans, guarantees, insurance, and other financial services to their particular nation's exporters and foreign direct investors. Their contribution to national growth and development both in the United States and abroad is significant, and the special nature of their operations makes them essential to the welfare of countless businesses worldwide. Essential reading for business professionals, scholars, researchers, and students involved with international business and economic development.

Annuity insurance products help protect retirees against outliving their incomes. Dramatic advances in life expectancy mean that today's retirees must plan on living into their eighties, their nineties, and even beyond. Longer life expectancies are the symbol of a prosperous society, but this progress also means that some retirees will need to plan conservatively and cut back substantially on their living standards or risk living so long that they exhaust their resources. This book examines the role that life annuities can play in helping people protect themselves against such outcomes. A life annuity is an insurance product that pays out a periodic amount for as long as the annuitant is alive, in exchange for a premium. The book begins with a history of life annuity markets during the twentieth century in the United States and elsewhere. It then explores recent trends in annuity pricing and money's worth, as well as the economic value generated for purchasers of these products. The book explains the potential importance of inflation-protected annuities and stock-market-linked variable annuities in providing more complete retirement security. The concluding chapters examine life annuities in various institutional settings and the tax treatment of annuity products.