Which of the following are valid approaches to leveraging external loss data for modeling operational risks:

Which of the following are valid approaches to leveraging external loss data for modeling operational risks:

I. Both internal and external losses can be fitted with distributions, and a weighted average approach using these distributions is relied upon for capital calculations.

II. External loss data is used to inform scenario modeling.

III. External loss data is combined with internal loss data points, and distributions fitted to the combined data set.

IV. External loss data is used to replace internal loss data points to create a higher quality data set to fit distributions.
A . I, II and III
B . I and III
C . II and IV
D . All of the above

View Answer

Answer: A

Explanation:

Internal loss data is generally the highest quality as it is relevant, and is ‘real’ as it has occurred to the organization. External loss data suffers from a significant limitation that the risk profiles of the banks to which the data relates is generally not known due to anonymization, and may likely may not be applicable to the bank performing the calculations. Therefore, replacing external loss data with external loss data is not a good idea. Statement IV is therefore incorrect.

All other approach described are valid approaches for the risk analyst to consider and implement. Therefore statements I, II and III are correct and IV is not.