Collateral
Managemen
t
What is Collateral Management?
At a high level, collateral management is the function responsible for reducing credit risk in
unsecured financial transactions. Collateral has been used for hundreds of years to provide
security against the possibility of payment default by the opposing party (or parties) in a trade. In
our modern banking industry collateral is used most prevalently as bilateral insurance in over the
counter (OTC) financial transactions. However, collateral management has evolved rapidly
in the last 15-20 years with increasing use of new technologies, competitive pressures in the
institutional finance industry, and heightened counterparty risk from the wide use of derivatives,
securitization of asset pools, and leverage. As a result, collateral management now
encompasses multiple complex and interrelated functions, including repos, tri-party /
multilateral collateral, collateral outsourcing, collateral arbitrage, collateral tax
treatment,cross-border collateralization, credit risk, counterparty credit limits, and
enhanced legal protections using ISDA collateral agreements.
Credit risk exists in any transaction which is not executed on a strictly cash basis. An example of
credit-risk free transaction would be the outright purchase of a stock or bond on an exchange
with a clearing house. Examples of transactions involving credit risk include over the counter
(OTC) derivative deals (swaps, swaptions, credit default swaps, CDOs) and business-tobusiness loans (repos, total return swaps, money market transactions, term loans, notes, etc.).
Collateral of some sort is usually required by the counterparties in these transactions because it
mitigates the risk of payment default. Collateral can be in the form of cash, securities (typically
high grade government bonds or notes, stocks, and increasingly other forms such as MBS or
ABS pools, leases, real estate, art, etc.)
Collateral is typically required to wholly or partially secure derivative transactions between
institutional counterparties such as banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds, and lenders. Although
collateral is also used in consumer and small business lending (for example home loans, car
loans, etc.), the focus of this article is on collaterization of OTC derivative transactions.
Collaterization is the act of securing a transaction with collateral. It has multiple uses which fall
under the umbrella of collateral management:
- A credit enhancement technique allowing a net borrower to receive better borrowing rates or
haircuts.
- A credit risk mitigation tool for private/OTC transactions -- offsets risk that counterparty will
default on deal obligations (in whole or part).
- Applied to secure individual deals or entire portfolios on a net basis.
- A trade facilitation tool which enable parties to trade with one another when they would
otherwise be prohibited from doing so due to credit risk limits or regulations (for example
European pension fund regulations or Islamic banking law).
- A component of firm wide portfolio risk and risk management including market risk (VaR,
stress testing), capital adequacy, regulatory compliance and operational risk (Basel II, MiFid,
Solvency II, FAS 133, FAS 157, IAS 39, etc.), and asset-liability management (ALM).
- A money market investment (lending for short periods to earn interest on available cash or
securities).
- A balance sheet management technique used to optimize bank capital, meet asset-liability
coverage rules, or earn extra income from lending excess assets to other institutions in need of
additional assets.
- An arbitrage opportunity through the use of tri-party collateral transactions.
- An outsourced tri-party collateral / tri-party repo service for major broker-dealers to offer to
their clients.
Collateral Management Glossary of Key Terms
The following key terms will be useful as you read through this Guide.
- Add-On: An additional currency amount added on to the mark to market value of an underlying trade or security to
offset the risk of non-payment. This represents the credit spread above the default-free rate which one counterparty
charges the other based on its internal calculations (often negotiated beforehand and memorialized in a CSA).
- Call amount: the currency amount of collateral being requested by the Taker.
- Credit Support Annex (CSA): a legal agreement which sets forth the terms and conditions of the credit
arrangements between the counterparties. The trades are normally executed under an ISDA Master Agreement then
the credit terms are formalized separately in a CSA (SEE ALSO Collateral Support Document).
- Collateral Support Document (CSD): a legal agreement which sets forth the terms and conditions that
collaterization will occur under in a bi-lateral or tri-lateral / multilateral relationship.
- Give: to transfer collateral to a counterparty to meet a collateral or margin demand. The counterparty with negative
mark-to-market (a loss) is usually the collateral Giver. (SEE ALSO Pledge).
- Haircut (SEE Valuation Percentage).
- Independent Amount: An additional amount which is paid above the mark-to-market value of the trade or portfolio.
The Independent Amount is required to offset the potential future exposure or credit risk between margin call
calculation periods. If daily calculations are used, the Independent Amount offsets the overnight credit risk. If weekly
calculations are done, the Independent Amount will usually be higher to offset a large amount of potential mark-tomarket movement that can occur in a week versus a day. Many counterparties set the Independent Amount at zero
then substitute the Minimum Transfer Amount (MTA) as the Independent Amount on a counterparty-by-counterparty
basis.
- Margin: Initial margin is the amount of collateral (in currency value) that must be posted up front to enter into a deal
on day 1. Variation margin (a.k.a. maintenance margin) is the amount of collateral that must be posted by either party
to offset changes in the value of the underlying deal. Initial margin is generally, but not always, higher than variation
margin.
- Margin Call: A request typically made by the party with a net positive gain to the party with a net negative gain to
post additional collateral to offset credit risk due to changes in deal value.
- Mark to Market (MTM): Currency valuation of a trade, security, or portfolio based on available comparative trade
prices in the open market within a stated time frame. MTM does not take into account any price slippage or liquidity
effect that might occur from exiting the deal in the open market, but uses the same or similar transaction prices as
indicators of value.
- Mark to Model: Currency valuation of a trade or security based on the output of a theoretical pricing model (e.g.
Black Scholes).
- Minimum Transfer Amount (MTA): The smallest amount of currency value that is allowable for transfer as
collateral. This is a lower threshold beneath which the transfer is more costly
than the benefits provided by collaterization. For large banks, the MTA is usually in the USD 100,000 range, but can
be lower.
- Netting: the process of aggregating all open trades with a counterparty together to reach a net mark-to-market
portfolio value and exposure estimate. Netting facilitates operational efficiency and
reduced capital requirements by taking advantage of reduced risk exposures due to correlation effects of portfolio
diversification versus valuing all trades independently. However, netting relies upon efficient and accurate pricing at a
portfolio level to be effective.
- Pledge: to give collateral to your counterparty. (SEE ALSO Give).
- Potential Future Exposure (PFE): The estimated likelihood of loss due to nonpayment or other risk, in this case the
likelihood of default on a counterparty's obligations.
- Rehypothecation: the secondary trading of collateral. Rehypothecation is the cornerstone of tri-party collateral
management.
- Substitution: replacing one form of collateral (e.g. corporate bond) with another form of collateral (e.g. Treasury
bond) during the life of a particular deal or trading relationship.
- Take: to receive collateral from a counterparty to meet a collateral or margin demand. The counterparty with positive
mark-to-market (a gain) is usually the collateral Taker.
- Threshold Amount: the amount of unsecured credit risk that two counterparties are willing to accept before a
collateral demand will be made. The counterparties typically agree to a Threshold Amount prior to dealing, but this is a
source of ongoing friction between OTC counterparties and their brokers.
- Top-up: To give additional collateral to your counterparty to meet a margin call.
- Valuation Percentage: a percentage applied to the mark-to-market value of collateral which reduces its value for
collaterization purposes. Also known as a "haircut", the Valuation Percentage protects the collateral Taker from
drops in the collateral's MTM value between margin call periods. For example, if the MTM value of the collateral is
$100 and the Valuation Percentage = 98.5% then 1.5% is being charged to offset period-to-period valuation risk and
the collateral amount counted is only $98.50. The Valuation Percentage offered by different counterparties and
brokers may vary in the market, so buy side participants often "haircut shop" for the best rate.
