Pass the PRMIA PRM Certification 8008 Questions and answers with ExamsMirror

In a bankruptcy, equity ranks last. Preferred equity is one level above equity. Senior debt gets paid out first compared to junior debt, and secured debt is paid out first to the extent of the asset securing it (after which it counts as unsecured debt). Accounts payable and other short term liabilities are treated like unsecured creditors. Debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing ranks higher than any other asset as it is financing secured after the bankruptcy to continue the business.

Based on the above, statement I does not represent a correct ordering of seniority as equity is paid last. Similarly, DIP financing receives higher priority than even secured debt, and therefore statement IV is incorrect. Therefore the only correct statements are II and III and Choice 'a' is the correct answer.

Normal mixtures, EVT and the t-distribution are all possible solutions addressing the issue of heavy tails in financial returns.

EWMA and GARCH address volatility clustering, which is the other problem when doing risk calculations. Therefore Choice 'b' is the correct answer as EWMA is not used to address heavy tails but volatility clustering.

The actuarial or CreditRisk+ model considers default as an 'end of game' event modeled by a Poisson distribution. The annual number of defaults is a stochastic variable with a mean of μ and standard deviation equal to √μ.

The probability of n defaults is given by (μ^n e^-μ) /n!, and therefore in this case is equal to (=2^4 * exp(-2))/FACT(4)) = 0.0902.

Note that CreditRisk+ is the same methodology as the actuarial approach, and requires using the Poisson distribution.

All product pricing should reflect the cost of maintaining the liquidity required to support a product. This is regardless of the accounting treatment for the product, ie irrespective of whether the product is on or off balance sheet. Therefore statement I is incorrect.

The time horizon to consider for liquidity risk management is determined taking into account a number of factors, which include both the speed at which new sources of liquidity can be generated and any applicable regulatory requirements. Statement II is correct.

Managing collateral, both collateral received and collateral posted with counterparties, is an important aspect of liquidity risk management as liquidity problems often manifest themselves in the form of margin calls requiring collateral to be posted. Statement III is therefore correct.

The maturity period of the different sources of capital funding for a bank, for example equity capital, preferred shares, long term debt etc quite clearly has a significant impact on liquidity needs. Stable sources of funds such as equity or preferred capital, or debt that is not maturing shortly help the liquidity position. Statement IV is therefore correct.

Choice 'b' is the correct answer.

The VaR for a spot FX position is merely a function of the standard deviation of the exchange rate. If V be the value of the position (in this case, EUR 15m x 1.5 = USD 22.5m), z the appropriate z value associated with the level of confidence desired, and σ be the standard deviation of the portfolio, the VaR is given by ZσV.

In this case, the 10-day standard deviation is given by SQRT(10/250)*16%. Therefore the VaR is =1.645*15*1.5*(16%*SQRT(10/250)) = USD 1.1844m. Choice 'c' is the correct answer.

The capital adequacy ratio, also called the minimum capital requirement for credit risk per Basel II is 8% of risk weighted assets. The other choices are incorrect.

Volatility clustering leads to levels of current volatility that can be significantly different from long run averages. When volatility is running high, institutions need to shed risk, and when it is running low, they can afford to increase returns by taking on more risk for a given amount of capital. An institution's response to changes in volatility can be either to adjust risk, or capital, or both. Accounting for volatility clustering helps institutions manage their risk and capital and therefore statements I and II are correct.

Regulatory requirements do not require volatility clustering to be taken into account (at least not yet). Therefore statement III is not correct, and neither is IV which is completely unrelated to volatility clustering.

Steady state variance under the GARCH model is given by the formula ω/(1 - α – β). In this case, steady state variance therefore works out to 0.00025/(1 - 0.1 - 0.8) = 0.0025. Since this is the variance, volatility is the square root of 0.0025, which works out to 0.05.

Thus, 5% (=0.05) is the correct answer, and the others are incorrect.

Also recall the following in respect of GARCH:

The stresses on liquidity that happened as part of the credit crisis beginning 2007-08 led to drying up of trading and liquidity crisis in the corporate bond markets, the auction rate securities markets, the wholesale (interbank lending) markets, the money markets, the markets for structured products, and even the otherwise liquid futures and forwards markets (as there was no liquidity available to fund the financing of futures). The one market that was not affected was the market for treasuries, in fact the flight to quality ensured that this market was very liquid (even though stressed from a pricing perspective as yields plummetted).

Therefore Choice 'a' is the correct answer.

The correct definition of CVA is LGD * EPE * PD. All other answers are incorrect.

CVA reflects the adjustment for counterparty default on derivative and other trading book transactions. This reflects the credit charge, that neeeds to be reduced from the expected value of the transaction to determine its true value. It is calculated as a product of the loss given default, the probability of default and the average weighted exposure of future EPEs across the time horizon for the transaction.

The future exposures need to be discounted to the present, and occasionally the equations for CVA will state that explicitly. Similarly, in some more advanced dynamic models the correlation between EPE and PD is also accounted for. The conceptual ideal though remains the same: CVA=LGD*EPE*PD.