In this chapter we provide an overview of the concept of blockchain technology and its potential to disrupt the world of banking through facilitating global money remittance, smart contracts, automated banking ledgers and digital assets. In this regard, we first provide a brief overview of the...

We develop a novel approach to the bond portfolio optimization in insurance companies that are subject to the new Solvency II regulation. The regulatory efficient portfolios are determined using the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II). The characteristics of the estimated...

Financial intermediaries often provide guarantees that resemble out-of-the-money put options, exposing them to tail risk. We present a model in the context of the U.S. life insurance industry in which variable annuity (VA) guarantees and associated hedging operate within the regulatory capital...

We propose a novel conceptual approach to transparently characterizing credit market outcomes in economies with multi-dimensional borrower heterogeneity. Based on characterizations of securities' implicit demand for bank equity capital, we obtain closed-form expressions for the composition of...

We analyze an initiative by insurance regulators to reform capital regulations for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) by replacing credit ratings with third-party estimates of expected credit losses and by considering an insurer's exposure to future losses when determining regulatory capital....

This study discusses the role of institutional investors in financing infrastructure in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). It analyzes the present level of involvement as well as the future investment potential of new financing sources such as public and private pension funds,...

The Munich chain-ladder reserving method was introduced on an axiomatic basis. We analyze these axioms and we define a modified Munich chain-ladder reserving method which is based on an explicit stochastic model. This stochastic model then allows to consider claims prediction and prediction...

Most of the blame for the present Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has been attributed to securitization and CDSs in the years preceding growth of the crisis. On reflection, most of the blame must be “sheeted home” to the former U.S government's mandate to banks and other financial institutions...

We give a rigorous definition of best-estimate reserves for insurance liabilities in a general multiperiod financial market setting. In this general multiperiod financial market setting we describe payoff spaces and optimal dynamic hedging strategies. Based on this optimal dynamic hedging...

America is in distress. We have been going from one crisis to another. Here are just a few: the savings and loan debacle which began in the 1980s; accounting fraud and financial irregularities scandals that involved such firms as Enron, Adelphia, Tyco International, Global Crossings, and led to...