IRA Releases New Report: Basel II by the Numbers 2005 Adds Shopping Cart Feature to Web Site.

LOS ANGELES -- Institutional Risk Analytics has released its report, "Basel II By the Numbers 2005," including economic capital measures and Basel II credit benchmarks for US bank and thrift holding companies with assets greater than $10 billion.

Copies of the report, as well as individual profiles for the more than 100 institutions featured in "Basel II by the Numbers 2005," are available for purchase on the IRA web site. The report is delivered in Adobe Acrobat and has a cost of $250.

Please click on the hyperlink below to register on the IRA web site and purchase the report:

http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/cart/login.asp

Also, in response to demand from banks, analysts and other consumers of financial data, IRA has rolled-out a new shopping cart feature on its web site, allowing users to purchase individual profiles of US banks and savings institutions at a relatively low cost. Customers may purchase detailed profiles of banks, bank holding companies and thrifts generated by the IRA Bank Monitor and select from delivery display options such as Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Excel.

Some highlights from the "Basel II by the Numbers 2005" report:

In contrast to the fourth Quantitative Impact Study ("QIS") sponsored by US regulators, the fully-stressed economic capital measures presented by IRA suggest that the largest US banks should be required to hold more capital under Basel II than under current minimum capital requirements. Activities such as trading, derivatives and investments appear to be the dominant factor supporting this view.

Conversely, medium and smaller financial institutions included in this analysis, which were not part of the QIS survey, appear to require levels of economic capital significantly below current minimum levels of regulatory risk based capital. This observation appears to be tied to the abnormally low levels of loan defaults observed throughout the banking industry over the past five years.

The summary metrics presented in "Basel II by the Numbers 2005" are based on "as filed" data from the FDIC's Research Information Service and aggregate all loan portfolios of the subsidiary banks, rolled-up to present a "bank only" view of the respective bank and thrift holding company. These public proxies serve as a point of departure for performing capital allocation, risk management and credit analysis tasks, such as generating internal probability of default ratings for the Advanced Internal Ratings Based approach of Basel II.

About IRA

IRA designs and builds customized risk analysis and valuation tools for credit officers, auditors, corporate lenders, regulators and other financial decision makers. Our transparent analytics systems utilize industry-standard relational databases and classical financial benchmarks to assess the performance of companies. By giving our clients full access to the analytics system and the underlying calculations, we help them to meet the internal risk ratings and compliance requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley and the New Basel Capital Accord.