General. (1) To recognize the risk-mitigating effects of financial collateral, a national bank or Federal savings association may use:

The simple approach in paragraph (b) of this section for any exposure; or

The collateral haircut approach in paragraph (c) of this section for repo-style transactions, eligible margin loans, collateralized derivative contracts, and single-product netting sets of such transactions.

A national bank or Federal savings association may use any approach described in this section that is valid for a particular type of exposure or transaction; however, it must use the same approach for similar exposures or transactions.

The simple approach—(1) General requirements. (i) A national bank or Federal savings association may recognize the credit risk mitigation benefits of financial collateral that secures any exposure.

To qualify for the simple approach, the financial collateral must meet the following requirements:

The collateral must be subject to a collateral agreement for at least the life of the exposure;

The collateral must be revalued at least every six months; and

The collateral (other than gold) and the exposure must be denominated in the same currency.

Risk weight substitution. (i) A national bank or Federal savings association may apply a risk weight to the portion of an exposure that is secured by the fair value of financial collateral (that meets the requirements of paragraph (b)(1) of this section) based on the risk weight assigned to the collateral under § 3.32. For repurchase agreements, reverse repurchase agreements, and securities lending and borrowing transactions, the collateral is the instruments, gold, and cash the national bank or Federal savings association has borrowed, purchased subject to resale, or taken as collateral from the counterparty under the transaction. Except as provided in paragraph (b)(3) of this section, the risk weight assigned to the collateralized portion of the exposure may not be less than 20 percent.

A national bank or Federal savings association must apply a risk weight to the unsecured portion of the exposure based on the risk weight applicable to the exposure under this subpart.

Exceptions to the 20 percent risk-weight floor and other requirements. Notwithstanding paragraph (b)(2)(i) of this section:

A national bank or Federal savings association may assign a zero percent risk weight to an exposure to an OTC derivative contract that is marked-to-market on a daily basis and subject to a daily margin maintenance requirement, to the extent the contract is collateralized by cash on deposit.

A national bank or Federal savings association may assign a 10 percent risk weight to an exposure to an OTC derivative contract that is marked-to-market daily and subject to a daily margin maintenance requirement, to the extent that the contract is collateralized by an exposure to a sovereign that qualifies for a zero percent risk weight under § 3.32.

A national bank or Federal savings association may assign a zero percent risk weight to the collateralized portion of an exposure where:

The financial collateral is cash on deposit; or

The financial collateral is an exposure to a sovereign that qualifies for a zero percent risk weight under § 3.32, and the national bank or Federal savings association has discounted the fair value of the collateral by 20 percent.

Collateral haircut approach—(1) General. A national bank or Federal savings association may recognize the credit risk mitigation benefits of financial collateral that secures an eligible margin loan, repo-style transaction, collateralized derivative contract, or single-product netting set of such transactions, and of any collateral that secures a repo-style transaction that is included in the national bank's or Federal savings association's VaR-based measure under subpart F of this part by using the collateral haircut approach in this section. A national bank or Federal savings association may use the standard supervisory haircuts in paragraph (c)(3) of this section or, with prior written approval of the OCC, its own estimates of haircuts according to paragraph (c)(4) of this section.

Exposure amount equation. A national bank or Federal savings association must determine the exposure amount for an eligible margin loan, repo-style transaction, collateralized derivative contract, or a single-product netting set of such transactions by setting the exposure amount equal to max {0, [(ΣE − ΣC) + Σ(Es × Hs) + Σ(Efx × Hfx)]}, where:

For eligible margin loans and repo-style transactions and netting sets thereof, ΣE equals the value of the exposure (the sum of the current fair values of all instruments, gold, and cash the national bank or Federal savings association has lent, sold subject to repurchase, or posted as collateral to the counterparty under the transaction (or netting set)); and

For collateralized derivative contracts and netting sets thereof, ΣE equals the exposure amount of the OTC derivative contract (or netting set) calculated under § 3.34 (a)(1) or (2).

ΣC equals the value of the collateral (the sum of the current fair values of all instruments, gold and cash the national bank or Federal savings association has borrowed, purchased subject to resale, or taken as collateral from the counterparty under the transaction (or netting set));

Es equals the absolute value of the net position in a given instrument or in gold (where the net position in the instrument or gold equals the sum of the current fair values of the instrument or gold the national bank or Federal savings association has lent, sold subject to repurchase, or posted as collateral to the counterparty minus the sum of the current fair values of that same instrument or gold the national bank or Federal savings association has borrowed, purchased subject to resale, or taken as collateral from the counterparty);

Hs equals the market price volatility haircut appropriate to the instrument or gold referenced in Es;

Efx equals the absolute value of the net position of instruments and cash in a currency that is different from the settlement currency (where the net position in a given currency equals the sum of the current fair values of any instruments or cash in the currency the national bank or Federal savings association has lent, sold subject to repurchase, or posted as collateral to the counterparty minus the sum of the current fair values of any instruments or cash in the currency the national bank or Federal savings association has borrowed, purchased subject to resale, or taken as collateral from the counterparty); and

Hfx equals the haircut appropriate to the mismatch between the currency referenced in Efx and the settlement currency.

Standard supervisory haircuts. (i) A national bank or Federal savings association must use the haircuts for market price volatility (Hs) provided in Table 1 to § 3.37, as adjusted in certain circumstances in accordance with the requirements of paragraphs (c)(3)(iii) and (iv) of this section.

For currency mismatches, a national bank or Federal savings association must use a haircut for foreign exchange rate volatility (Hfx) of 8.0 percent, as adjusted in certain circumstances under paragraphs (c)(3)(iii) and (iv) of this section.

For repo-style transactions, a national bank or Federal savings association may multiply the standard supervisory haircuts provided in paragraphs (c)(3)(i) and (ii) of this section by the square root of 1/2 (which equals 0.707107).

If the number of trades in a netting set exceeds 5,000 at any time during a quarter, a national bank or Federal savings association must adjust the supervisory haircuts provided in paragraphs (c)(3)(i) and (ii) of this section upward on the basis of a holding period of twenty business days for the following quarter except in the calculation of the exposure amount for purposes of § 3.35. If a netting set contains one or more trades involving illiquid collateral or an OTC derivative that cannot be easily replaced, a national bank or Federal savings association must adjust the supervisory haircuts upward on the basis of a holding period of twenty business days. If over the two previous quarters more than two margin disputes on a netting set have occurred that lasted more than the holding period, then the national bank or Federal savings association must adjust the supervisory haircuts upward for that netting set on the basis of a holding period that is at least two times the minimum holding period for that netting set. A national bank or Federal savings association must adjust the standard supervisory haircuts upward using the following formula:

TM equals a holding period of longer than 10 business days for eligible margin loans and derivative contracts or longer than 5 business days for repo-style transactions;

HS equals the standard supervisory haircut; and

TS equals 10 business days for eligible margin loans and derivative contracts or 5 business days for repo-style transactions.

If the instrument a national bank or Federal savings association has lent, sold subject to repurchase, or posted as collateral does not meet the definition of financial collateral, the national bank or Federal savings association must use a 25.0 percent haircut for market price volatility (Hs).

Own internal estimates for haircuts. With the prior written approval of the OCC, a national bank or Federal savings association may calculate haircuts (Hs and Hfx) using its own internal estimates of the volatilities of market prices and foreign exchange rates:

To receive OCC approval to use its own internal estimates, a national bank or Federal savings association must satisfy the following minimum standards:

A national bank or Federal savings association must use a 99th percentile one-tailed confidence interval.

The minimum holding period for a repo-style transaction is five business days and for an eligible margin loan is ten business days except for transactions or netting sets for which paragraph (c)(4)(i)(C) of this section applies. When a national bank or Federal savings association calculates an own-estimates haircut on a TN-day holding period, which is different from the minimum holding period for the transaction type, the applicable haircut (HM) is calculated using the following square root of time formula:

TM equals 5 for repo-style transactions and 10 for eligible margin loans;

TN equals the holding period used by the national bank or Federal savings association to derive HN; and

HN equals the haircut based on the holding period TN.

If the number of trades in a netting set exceeds 5,000 at any time during a quarter, a national bank or Federal savings association must calculate the haircut using a minimum holding period of twenty business days for the following quarter except in the calculation of the exposure amount for purposes of § 3.35. If a netting set contains one or more trades involving illiquid collateral or an OTC derivative that cannot be easily replaced, a national bank or Federal savings association must calculate the haircut using a minimum holding period of twenty business days. If over the two previous quarters more than two margin disputes on a netting set have occurred that lasted more than the holding period, then the national bank or Federal savings association must calculate the haircut for transactions in that netting set on the basis of a holding period that is at least two times the minimum holding period for that netting set.

A national bank or Federal savings association is required to calculate its own internal estimates with inputs calibrated to historical data from a continuous 12-month period that reflects a period of significant financial stress appropriate to the security or category of securities.

A national bank or Federal savings association must have policies and procedures that describe how it determines the period of significant financial stress used to calculate the national bank's or Federal savings association's own internal estimates for haircuts under this section and must be able to provide empirical support for the period used. The national bank or Federal savings association must obtain the prior approval of the OCC for, and notify the OCC if the national bank or Federal savings association makes any material changes to, these policies and procedures.

Nothing in this section prevents the OCC from requiring a national bank or Federal savings association to use a different period of significant financial stress in the calculation of own internal estimates for haircuts.

A national bank or Federal savings association must update its data sets and calculate haircuts no less frequently than quarterly and must also reassess data sets and haircuts whenever market prices change materially.

With respect to debt securities that are investment grade, a national bank or Federal savings association may calculate haircuts for categories of securities. For a category of securities, the national bank or Federal savings association must calculate the haircut on the basis of internal volatility estimates for securities in that category that are representative of the securities in that category that the national bank or Federal savings association has lent, sold subject to repurchase, posted as collateral, borrowed, purchased subject to resale, or taken as collateral. In determining relevant categories, the national bank or Federal savings association must at a minimum take into account:

The type of issuer of the security;

The credit quality of the security;

The maturity of the security; and

The interest rate sensitivity of the security.

With respect to debt securities that are not investment grade and equity securities, a national bank or Federal savings association must calculate a separate haircut for each individual security.

Where an exposure or collateral (whether in the form of cash or securities) is denominated in a currency that differs from the settlement currency, the national bank or Federal savings association must calculate a separate currency mismatch haircut for its net position in each mismatched currency based on estimated volatilities of foreign exchange rates between the mismatched currency and the settlement currency.

A national bank's or Federal savings association's own estimates of market price and foreign exchange rate volatilities may not take into account the correlations among securities and foreign exchange rates on either the exposure or collateral side of a transaction (or netting set) or the correlations among securities and foreign exchange rates between the exposure and collateral sides of the transaction (or netting set).