Company: WBS-PG
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000801337-25-000004
Chunk: 285

Company: WEBSTER FINANCIAL CORP
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 7
Chunk 285
---
 flows over the expected life of existing financial assets, financial liabilities, and off-balance sheet financial instruments. It is a measure of the long-term interest rate risk to future earnings’ streams embedded in the current balance sheet.

The Bank regularly evaluates rate exposure over long-term using equity at risk. The Bank deploys various techniques to a yield curve shocks, static balance sheet, basis risks, and options risks. The level of uncertainty around key assumption increases with time, which may limit its effectiveness.

Asset sensitivity is defined as earnings or net economic value increasing when interest rates rise and decreasing when interest rates fall, as compared to a base scenario. In other words, financial assets are more sensitive to changing interest rates than liabilities, and therefore, re-price faster. Likewise, liability sensitivity is defined as earnings or net economic value decreasing when interest rates rise and increasing when interest rates fall, as compared to a base scenario.

Key assumptions underlying the present value of cash flows include the behavior of interest rates and spreads, asset prepayment speeds, and attrition rates on deposits. Cash flow projections from the model are compared to market expectations for similar collateral types and adjusted based on experience with the Bank’s own portfolio. The model’s valuation results are compared to observable market prices for similar instruments whenever possible. The behavior of deposit and loan customers is studied using historical time series analysis to model future customer behavior under varying interest rate environments.

The equity at risk simulation process uses multiple interest rate paths generated by an arbitrage-free trinomial lattice term structure model. The base case rate scenario, against which all others are compared, currently uses the month-end SOFR/swap yield curve as a starting point to derive forward rates for future months. Using interest rate swap option volatilities as inputs, the model creates multiple rate paths for this scenario with forward rates as the mean. In shock scenarios, the starting yield curve is shocked up or down in a parallel fashion. Future rate paths are then constructed in a similar manner to the base case scenario.

Cash flows for all financial instruments are generated using product specific prepayment models and account specific system data for properties such as maturity date, amortization type, coupon rate, repricing frequency, and repricing date. The asset/liability simulation software is enhanced with a mortgage prepayment model and a collateralized mortgage obligation database. Financial instruments with explicit options (i.e., caps, floors, puts, and calls) and implicit options (i.e., prepayment and early withdrawal abilities) require such modeling approach to quantify value and risk more accurately.

59