One of the key reforms of Basel III to ensure the resilience of credit institutions, the LCR requires banks operating in Europe to hold an adequate number of assets that can be converted easily and immediately into cash in private markets with no or little loss of value, even in stressed conditions - that is, High Quality Liquid Assets or HQLA. The LCR will be progressively implemented in Europe between 2015 and 2018 under the Capital Requirements Regulation.

To fulfil this obligation, banks need to determine the HQLA eligibility of their assets at a security level and on an ongoing basis, a time- and resource-intensive exercise to which many banks devote teams of people. The task requires global market expertise and a large amount of descriptive data which needs to be organised into logical rule sets accounting for each jurisdiction’s HQLA definitions. In addition, the data sets need to be tested on a daily basis to reflect security level changes (e.g. credit rating).

“The LCR measure requires Rabobank, along with all other banks operating in Europe, to assess the level of liquidity of investments and collateral. By including and reviewing a larger scope of securities through Bloomberg’s HQLA solution, Rabobank will optimise its liquidity coverage ratio determination,” said Allan Bolk, Head of Securities Finance & Repo Europe, Rabobank. “The tool will allow us to track and report our liquidity buffer efficiently on a consistent and daily basis and will enable our treasury to manage and optimise its investment decisions with real-time classifications.”

“Bloomberg’s HQLA solution leverages our unrivalled reference data to help our clients manage complex LCR calculations and reporting requirements efficiently while optimising collateral management,” said Ilaria Vigano, Bloomberg’s Head of Regulatory and Accounting Products. “It provides robust global coverage for HQLA classification of over 3 million securities, addressing regulatory nuances across multiple jurisdictions.”

Bloomberg’s HQLA solution features specific data fields to determine the appropriate HQLA level under US, EU, Canadian, Australian and Japanese regulations as well as the original Basel guidelines. It also covers Central Bank eligibility for 10 discount windows. The data are available for a wide range of assets, including equities, bonds, and mortgage pools, as well as structured and consumer asset-backed securities. In addition to enabling liquidity buffer management, the optimisation of collateral management and efficient reporting mechanisms for risk and regulatory submissions, the solution also provides data to better inform treasurers on their trading activities and helps streamline compliance verification procedures.

The HQLA solution is part of Bloomberg’s Regulatory and Accounting Product suite, which helps senior compliance officers at banks, asset managers, insurers and other financial organisations navigate an increasingly complex regulatory and accounting disclosure environment. HQLA is a premium service available to traders and compliance managers via the Bloomberg Professional service as well as through an enterprise data feed. It was developed with input from regulators and industry experts in order to assure the high quality of the classifications provided.