Interest rate risk is the risk where changes in market interest rates might adversely affect a bank’s financial condition. The immediate impact of changes in interest rates is on the Net Interest Income (NII). A long term impact of changing interest rates is on the bank’s net worth since the economic value of a bank’s assets, liabilities and off-balance sheet positions get affected due to variation in market interest rates. The interest rate risk when viewed from these two perspectives is known as ‘earnings perspective’ and ‘economic valueperspective’, respectively. Management of interest rate risk aims at capturing the risks arising from the maturity and repricing mismatches and is measured both from the earnings and economic value perspective.
(a) Earnings perspective involves analysing the impact of changes in interest rates on accrual or reported earnings in the near term. This is measured by measuring the changes in the Net Interest Income (NII) or Net Interest Margin (NIM), i.e., the difference between the total interest income and the total interest expense.
(b) Economic Value perspective involves analysing the changes of impact of interest on the expected cash flows on assets minus the expected cash flows on liabilities plus the net cash flows on off-balance sheet items. It focuses on the risk to networth arising from all repricing mismatches and other interest rate sensitive positions. The economic value perspective identifies risk arising from long term interest rate gaps.
