Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
ITEM 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK
Interest Rate Sensitivity
The Company faces market risk to the extent that its net interest income is affected by changes in market interest rates. The asset/liability management discipline as applied by the Company seeks to limit the volatility, to the extent possible, that can result from changes in market interest rates. This is accomplished by limiting the concentration of maturities of fixed rate investments, loans, and deposits; matching fixed rate assets and liabilities to the extent possible; and optimizing the mix of fees and net interest income. However the Company's asset/liability position often differs from other financial holding companies with positive cumulative "gaps." This asset sensitive position is caused primarily by the operations of the Company, which generate large balances of accounts and drafts payable. These balances, which are noninterest bearing, can cause the Company to become susceptible to changes in interest rates, with a decreasing net interest margin in periods of declining interest rates, like the Company is currently experiencing, and an increasing net interest margin in periods of rising interest rates.
The Company’s ALCO measures the Company's interest rate risk sensitivity on a quarterly basis to monitor and manage the variability of earnings in various interest rate environments. The ALCO evaluates the Company's risk position to determine whether the level of exposure is significant enough to hedge a potential decline in earnings or whether the Company can safely increase risk to enhance returns. The ALCO uses gap reports, 12-month net interest income simulations, and fair market value of equity analyses as its main analytical tools to provide management with insight into the Company's exposure to changing interest rates.
Management uses a gap report to review any significant mismatch between the re-pricing points of the Company’s rate sensitive assets and liabilities in certain time horizons. A negative gap indicates that more liabilities re-price in that particular time frame and, if rates rise, these liabilities will re-price faster than the assets. A positive gap would indicate the opposite. Gap reports can be misleading in that they capture only the re-pricing timing within the balance sheet, and fail to capture other significant risks such as basis risk and embedded options risk. Basis risk involves the potential for the spread relationship between rates to change under different rate environments and embedded options risk relates to the potential for the alteration of the level and/or timing of cash flows given changes in rates.
Another measurement tool used by management is net interest income simulation, which forecasts net interest income during the coming 12 months under different interest rate scenarios. Management has set policy limits specifying acceptable levels of interest rate risk given multiple simulated rate movements. These simulations are more informative than gap reports because they are able to capture more of the dynamics within the balance sheet, such as basis risk and embedded options risk. A table containing simulation results as of December 31, 2021, from an immediate and sustained parallel change in interest rates in three varying scenarios is shown below.
While net interest income simulations do an adequate job of capturing interest rate risk to short term earnings, they do not capture risk within the current balance sheet beyond 12 months. The Company uses fair market value of equity analyses to help identify longer-term risk that may reside on the current balance sheet. The fair market value of equity is represented by the present value of all future income streams generated by the current balance sheet. The Company measures the fair market value of equity as the net present value of all asset and liability cash flows discounted at forward rates suggested by the current U.S. Treasury curve plus appropriate credit spreads. This representation of the change in the fair market value
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of equity under different rate scenarios gives insight into the magnitude of risk to future earnings due to rate changes. Management has set policy limits relating to declines in the market value of equity.
The table below illustrates the projected impact of interest rate shocks on net interest income as of December 31, 2021:
Change in Interest Rates % Change in Net Interest Income
+200 basis points 24%
+100 basis points 12%
-100 basis points (3%)
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