Weak capital, weak provisions-Credit risk provisioning under IFRS 9☆

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Behn, Markus; Couaillier, Cyril
• 署名单位: European Central Bank
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101; 1879-1980
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2025.101856
• 发表日期: 2026-05
• 页码: 101856
• 关键词: Bank regulation; Financial stability; Loan loss accounting; Credit risk; BANK; incentives

摘要

We analyse how capital management motives and accounting discretion have affected euro area banks' provisioning behaviour since the adoption of expected credit loss accounting (IFRS 9). Using granular loan-level data, we investigate provisioning dynamics around firm-level credit events and the macroeconomic shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that capital management motives have a strong impact on provisioning under IFRS 9, with less capitalised banks generally provisioning less than their better capitalised peers. Moreover, the bulk of provisioning under IFRS 9 continues to occur at the time of default, in contrast with the expected functioning of the approach. Overall, our findings suggest that IFRS 9 allows for substantial heterogeneity in provisioning across banks, while aggregate provisioning patterns have not been fundamentally altered by the new approach.