Exposure at Default - Counterparty Risk
- 02:23
Exposure at Default - Counterparty Risk
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Exposure at default for counterparty credit risk will depend on the underlying product being traded between parties. It's often much more complicated to calculate and forecast over the life of the product. For example, let's look at the potential EAD of a plain vanilla interest rate swap, also called a fix for floating IRS. Plain vanilla swaps are priced so they have zero value at inception. It's neither an asset nor a liability to either party. As time goes by and interest rates change, the swap will become an asset or a liability to one or the other party. For example, if interest rates rise, then the party that's protected by having the fixed rate element of the swap will have an asset on their hands. The more interest rates deviate from what was expected at the inception of the swap, the larger the potential EAD since the larger the future expected payments in the future periods will be. As the interest rate goes up, the party with the assets would expect greater payments from the counterparty. The EAD would be calculated as the present value of the future expected payments on the swap. This helps to explain the first part of the graph on the slide. As interest rates are moving away from the expected rate at inception, the expected payments to the holder of the swap are going up, and this means there's more to lose. The EAD is going up. Beyond a certain point, the EAD will start to reduce. This is because as time passes, there are fewer payments to be made on the swap, which will reduce the potential EAD. However, this is only one possible shape of what EAD might look like for a plain vanilla interest rate swap. As interest rate expectations may change over its life, there are many possible profiles and this makes it very challenging to calculate what the EAD may look like for an interest rate swap. This is a good illustration that calculating and quantifying EAD for counterparty credit risk is much more challenging than for lending credit exposures.