Assessment the operational risk for Chinese commercial banks

Abstract

Operational risk is one of the most important risks for Chinese commercial banks, and brings huge losses to Chinese commercial banks recent years. Using the public reported operational loss data from 1997 to 2005 of Chinese commercial banks, we simulate the operational loss distribution, find that loss frequency can be seen as Poisson distribution and the logarithm of loss is normal distribution. In accordance with the confidence level required by Basel II, aggregated loss distributions and operational Value-at-Risks (OpVaR) are calculated by Monte Carlo Simulation. Comparing with the real loss, this result is credible. We also calculate the economic capital by the VaR 99.9, and it maybe help the banks to allocate appropriate their economic capital. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.