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Banker's Toolbox Crest
Commercial real estate concentration problems are behind many of the closures and cease-and-desist orders being handed down by the FDIC. Banker’s Toolbox’s Crest is a Web-based software that enables banks to stress test CRE loan portfolios to determine risk exposure, reveal strategies for creating a healthier loan portfolio and better prepare for Safety and Soundness exams. The new edition of Crest, released in October 2009, is streamlined to provide more accurate stress test results with fewer data requirements, overcoming the ongoing data-gathering challenge faced by all banks. This affordable program uses superior patent-pending technology that allows banks to easily apply forward-looking stress testing to the entire CRE loan portfolio.
This is an innovative approach to the issue of CRE stress testing because:
1. There are few automated stress testing systems on the market. Most banks are relying on spreadsheets and have to manually enter the data for each loan that needs to be tested. Crest automates the importing of data by using loan data that is already available in an electronic format, which is the loan data file given to your regulators prior to a safety and soundness examination.
2. The 2006 Guidance on Commercial Real Estate Concentrations requires banks to conduct a portfolio-level stress test, but most tools on the market only allow banks to test individual loans. Crest provides banks with a comprehensive, current view of the financial institution’s current CRE loan portfolio and projects hypothetical stress calculations based on actual loan, collateral, and appraisal data.
3. Thanks to improved visibility and risk management with Crest, bank management can ensure that their reserves reflect the actual credit risk in their CRE loan portfolio and local economic environment. Crest’s powerful tools can also help management make more informed decisions based on the potential impact of changing economic conditions to the bank’s earnings and capital.
4. Crest is core system-neutral. The software is hosted by Banker’s Toolbox on secure servers to keep costs low and increase security.
Banker's Toolbox
www.bankerstoolbox.com