Your access and use of SAMA Regulatory Rulebook and its content is considered as an acceptance and approval of commitment by you without any limitation or condition to the following:
SAMA Regulatory Rulebook is a platform that aims to assist the regulated entities to access SAMA regulatory content adeptly and efficiently.
SAMA Regulatory Rulebook is still on its development and soft launch stage. SAMA is not liable for its contents and does not warrant or represent that (the Services related to the platform, information or material presented in the platform) is displayed free of any inaccuracies, omissions, or errors (“Faults”). SAMA accepts no liability for any loss, claim or damage resulting from any use of the platform, and any decisions made, or actions taken based on the information contained in or generated by the platform.
SAMA Regulatory Rulebook has no legal effect and it does not aim to amend or revoke any legal provisions. The Rulebook still Contains some documents under review, including translated versions. Therefore, SAMA Regulatory content circulated through SAMA official channels remains in force.
Without prejudice to the terms of use of SAMA website Hereby, you acknowledge that any illegal, unauthorized use and/or any breach of any of these provisions may result in legal actions against you.
Banks that use the IMA for determining market risk capital requirements must have in place a rigorous and comprehensive stress testing programme both at the trading desk level and at the bank-wide level.
10.20
Banks’ stress scenarios must cover a range of factors that (i) can create extraordinary losses or gains in trading portfolios, or (ii) make the control of risk in those portfolios very difficult. These factors include low-probability events in all major types of risk, including the various components of market, credit and operational risks. A bank must design stress scenarios to assess the impact of such factors on positions that feature both linear and non-linear price characteristics (ie options and instruments that have option-like characteristics).
10.21
Banks’ stress tests should be of a quantitative and qualitative nature, incorporating both market risk and liquidity risk aspects of market disturbances.
(1)
Quantitative elements should identify plausible stress scenarios to which banks could be exposed.
(2)
Qualitatively, a bank’s stress testing programme should evaluate the capacity of the bank’s capital to absorb potential significant losses and identify steps the bank can take to reduce its risk and conserve capital.
10.22
Banks should routinely communicate results of stress testing to senior management and should periodically communicate those results to the bank’s board of directors.
10.23
Banks should combine the use of SAMA stress scenarios with stress tests developed by the bank itself to reflect its specific risk characteristics. Stress scenarios may include the following:
(1)
SAMA scenarios requiring no simulations by the bank. A bank should have information on the largest losses experienced during the reporting period and may be required to make this available for SAMA review. SAMA may compare this loss information to the level of capital requirements that would result from a bank’s internal measurement system. For example, the bank may be required to provide SAMA with an assessment of how many days of peak day losses would have been covered by a given ES estimate.
(2)
Scenarios requiring a simulation by the bank. Banks should subject their portfolios to a series of simulated stress scenarios and provide SAMA with the results. These scenarios could include testing the current portfolio against past periods of significant disturbance (eg the 1987 equity crash, the Exchange Rate Mechanism crises of 1992 and 1993, the increase in interest rates in the first quarter of 1994, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, the 2000 bursting of the technology stock bubble, the 2007–08 subprime mortgage crisis, or the 2011–12 Euro zone crisis) incorporating both the significant price movements and the sharp reduction in liquidity associated with these events. A second type of scenario would evaluate the sensitivity of the bank’s market risk exposure to changes in the assumptions about volatilities and correlations. Applying this test would require an evaluation of the historical range of variation for volatilities and correlations and evaluation of the bank’s current positions against the extreme values of the historical range. Due consideration should be given to the sharp variation that at times has occurred in a matter of days in periods of significant market disturbance. For example, the abovementioned situations involved correlations within risk factors approaching the extreme values of 1 or –1 for several days at the height of the disturbance.
(3)
Bank-developed stress scenarios. In addition to the scenarios prescribed by SAMA under [10.23](1), a bank should also develop its own stress tests that it identifies as most adverse based on the characteristics of its portfolio (eg problems in a key region of the world combined with a sharp move in oil prices). A bank should provide SAMA with a description of the methodology used to identify and carry out the scenarios as well as with a description of the results derived from these scenarios.
