Active operations of commercial banks inherently represent operations intended for the bank to place attracted and equity capital. This includes: granting loans, investing in a variety of commercial projects, the purchase of securities, factoring and leasing, as well as operations with bills and other things. Bank assets are usually distinguished by the degree of liquidity, as well as by the degree of profitability and riskiness. The higher the liquidity level, the less profitable they are. Bank assets, expressed in the form of investments in securities and long-term loans , give the largest profit. Usually they are most at risk.
Assets of a commercial bank are usually divided according to profitability:
- profitable: loans, securities, factoring, currency transactions, leasing, and others;
- non-profit: correspondent accounts, cash, capital investments, fixed assets, debtors, interest-free loans and more.
Assets are usually classified according to their liquidity level, that is, the speed with which they are transformed into invested funds and cash, so that the bank can immediately fulfill its obligations related to creditors and depositors. In order to provide the bank with the opportunity to pay daily for its obligations, the structure of the bank's assets must be in accordance with liquidity requirements. For this, they are divided into categories depending on liquidity and maturity. Bank assets are usually divided into highly liquid, long-term liquidity assets and simply liquid assets. It is customary to include highly liquid ones: cash and equivalents, funds on accounts with the Central Banks, on correspondent accounts, debt obligations to the state, investments in bonds, as well as funds that are received on correspondent accounts of banks from the execution of securities. If necessary, these liquid assets of the bank can be withdrawn from circulation. In addition to the above highly liquid funds, the liquid part includes all loans that were issued in foreign and national currencies for which the repayment period is approximately thirty days, as well as other payments of a credit institution promised to be repaid in the next thirty days. Long-term assets include all loans that were issued in foreign and national currencies with a maturity of more than a year, half of the guarantees and sureties that were issued by the bank for a period of more than a year, overdue loans minus loans guaranteed by the government, secured by precious metals and securities. The structure of the bank’s assets should be established as rationally as possible, while the bank should carefully monitor the implementation of liquidity requirements, that is, have a sufficient number of highly liquid, long-term liquid and liquid assets in relation to liabilities, taking into account the terms, types and amounts. And also comply with current, long-term and instant liquidity standards.
A prerequisite for the operation of any bank is a statistical analysis of operations with assets. In this regard, a certain set of tasks arises:
- analysis of the structure of the loan portfolio;
- analysis of the degree of participation of own funds;
- analysis of the structure of operations and their change in time;
- Comparison of the structure of banks' operations;
- assessment of the implementation of the required regulatory minimum reserves;
- determination of asset quality, in particular credit risk assessment;
- operations to group assets by degree of liquidity.
The Bank, like any enterprise whose activities are carried out in a market economy, faces the risk of loss. The task of managing it is to allocate assets in an optimal way, which minimizes risks.