TICS: developed for internal use
Our approach as an independent plan manager, able to select and deal with issuers / counterparties without bias, is that we seek to identify and deal with strong issuers / counterparties.
The Financial Stability Board (‘FSB’) identifies a list of 30 Global Systemically Important Banks (‘G-SIBs’) each year (usually in November). As the name suggests, G-SIBs are fundamentally the more important (usually bigger and stronger) banks, in a country / region / globally. As a result, G-SIBs are subject to more stringent regulatory requirements, including higher Tier 1 capital ratios.
It’s hard to argue with the rationale of recognising G-SIBs as bigger / stronger banking groups: we therefore deal predominantly with banking groups which are regulatorily identified as G-SIBs or, as a minimum, Domestic Systemically Important Banks (‘D-SIBs’).
- We developed TICS for internal purpose to help analyse, consider, understand – and compare – issuers / counterparties, in order to objectively identify strong issuers / counterparties in our role as an independent plan manager able to select and deal with issuers / counterparties without bias.
- TICS covers all 30 G-SIBs, plus a small number of D-SIBs and other issuers of or counterparties to UK retail structured products (including institutions which some issuers credit-link products to).
- TICS compiles multiple Factors across various Categories, pertinent to assessing and considering issuer / counterparty financial strength / credit risk, using a robust methodology, including a scoring system.
- The widely recognised measures and indicators of financial strength / credit risk and scoring system provoke and support more detailed and objective analysis, consideration and understanding – including comparison – of issuers / counterparties