LONDON (Reuters) – Just like the myriad approaches governments are taking to sort out the coronavirus disaster, the best way the world’s prime banks are calculating their potential losses additionally differs broadly, with puzzling outcomes for buyers.

These discrepancies are rooted within the interpretation of recent accounting guidelines referred to as IFRS9, which have been designed to advertise transparency and stability by making banks account for mortgage losses earlier.

However reasonably than fixing issues seen through the 2008-9 monetary disaster, when markets had been blindsided by a sudden deterioration in financial institution stability sheet well being, IFRS9 is confounding the identical buyers they’re meant to assist.

Whereas the foundations goal to supply a extra practical and well timed image of financial institution exposures, some have described their software as extra artwork than science. Critics go additional; complaining the system is advanced, opaque and weak to abuse.

“It makes a mockery of monetary reporting if banks can report higher numbers just by assuming a extra benign outlook -either deliberately or unintentionally,” Ed Firth, banking analyst at KBW, instructed Reuters.

A Reuters evaluation of first quarter regulatory filings highlights the extent to which banks are basing their estimates of how unhealthy loans will rise on differing financial forecasts.

For instance, Barclays (BARC.L) used an 8% fall in UK GDP and 6.7% unemployment as its baseline situation for 2020, whereas fellow British lender Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) had a 5% contraction in GDP and 5.9% unemployment.

Barclays booked a larger-than-expected 2.12 billion pound ($2.63 billion) credit score impairment cost, whereas Lloyds put aside 1.four billion kilos. Diverging financial forecasts don’t clarify all of that variation, however they make it more durable for buyers to grasp the banks’ fashions.

Lloyds’ Chief Govt Antonio Horta-Osorio mentioned final week that whereas his financial institution’s 2020 forecast was comparatively much less gloomy, its prediction for 3% development in 2021 was extra practical.

“We’re assuming a prudent restoration within the second yr of three% solely, so our mixed influence on the 2 years is a damaging 2% GDP,” Horta-Osorio mentioned.

Barclays, which expects a 6.3% bounce again in 2021, mentioned its forecast “displays the newest financial forecasts obtainable available in the market mixed with inner assumptions”.

Filippo Alloatti, Senior Credit score Analyst, Worldwide at Federated Hermes mentioned he was undecided on whether or not IFRS9 was a assist or a hindrance to financial institution buyers.

“We knew IFRS9 was untested in a recessionary atmosphere. It will get difficult when banks are utilizing a ‘situation cocktail’ and never disclosing the relative weighting of every situation,” he mentioned.

‘PORTFOLIO RISKS’

With banks not obliged to supply full particulars of their fashions within the first quarter and little readability over when and the way lockdown measures will probably be eased, a lot hinges on how administration opts to “overlay” economist forecasts with their very own numbers.

This enables them to issue within the influence of measures not inside regular GDP fashions, together with the size of lockdowns, furlough schemes to guard incomes and mortgage ensures.

“IFRS 9 requires administration to give you their greatest estimates, and if the fashions received’t seize that you should utilize different methods however it isn’t a precise science,” mentioned Karim Haji, Head of Monetary Providers UK at KPMG.

Deutsche Financial institution (DBKGn.DE), which provisioned 500 million euros for seemingly credit score losses, primarily based its calculation on a 6.9% fall in euro zone GDP, whereas Italy’s UniCredit (CRDI.MI) made a 900 million euro provision primarily based on a 13% GDP decline.

James von Moltke, finance chief for Germany’s greatest financial institution, mentioned final week he shared analysts’ issues about comparability of provisions and had mentioned the problem with regulators.

However the brand new accounting requirements and modifications in methodology didn’t undermine the power to evaluate whether or not every financial institution had made applicable provisions, he instructed analysts.

“You’ve bought to start out with the way you examine every financial institution on the idea of the portfolio dangers that they’ve,” von Moltke mentioned, pointing to Deutsche Financial institution’s far smaller unsecured lending e-book.

“It’s totally pure that you simply’d count on important variations within the whole provision degree that we’d take relative to a few of our friends,” he added.

UniCredit mentioned its mortgage loss provision mirrored in-house macroeconomic assumptions on the influence of the coronavirus adjusted for mitigating actions by the federal government and ECB. It declined to remark additional on the usage of a administration overlay.

PART ART, PART SCIENCE

U.S. banks, which reported earlier in April, usually introduced a extra bearish, conservative image of the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, analysts mentioned.

Financial institution of America (BAC.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N) and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) put aside an mixture $14.2 billion in mortgage loss provisions.

That’s partly as a result of U.S. banks use an accounting commonplace which requires them to e-book anticipated losses for a mortgage over its lifespan whereas IFRS9, which is utilized in Europe, recognises totally different ‘levels’ of troubled loans.

Europe’s greatest lender by belongings, HSBC (HSBA.L), shocked markets with its $7 billion to $11 billion provision estimate for 2020, whereas Asia-focused rival Customary Chartered (STAN.L) provisioned $956 million for the quarter.

Finance chief Ewen Stevenson mentioned HSBC’s provisions had been “half artwork, half science”, as bankers confronted the unattainable activity of predicting in fashions how unhealthy the pandemic slowdown will probably be.

“I wouldn’t attempt to say, ‘Look, right here’s a GDP forecast, a GDP restoration profile; and that will get you to X,’ I believe that’s too simplistic,” Stevenson added.

Bankers mentioned IFRS9 can exacerbate crises by having a ‘pro-cyclical’ impact by which recognising losses earlier paints a darker image, resulting in a worsening of financial sentiment.

Regulators have tried to supply readability on how banks ought to report early indicators of coronavirus misery amongst debtors, amid fears that IFRS9 may harm markets if mishandled.

However some say this has added to the confusion.

“Regulators and the European Fee have gone to massive lengths in demanding the banks usually are not too trigger-happy,” Alloatti mentioned.

“The very last thing they need is banks stopping refinancing the economic system and impairing the transmission mechanism.”