Prepayment Risk
A mortgage prepayment option works much like a call option for the borrower.... Read More
A repurchase agreement (or simply “repo”) is the sale of a security with a simultaneous agreement by the seller to buy back the same security from the same buyer at an agreed-upon price. When a repurchase agreement is viewed from the perspective of the cash lending party, it is commonly called a reverse repurchase agreement.
Each market participant in a repurchase agreement is exposed to counterparty defaults, regardless of the collaterals posted. The agreement is such that the lender is always the most vulnerable party. As such, the repo margin (called haircut in the US) is the difference between the market value of the security used as collateral and the value of the loan.
The level of margin is dependent on the following factors:
Question
Which of the following factors lowers the level of the repo margin?
- A longer repurchase agreement.
- A higher quality of the collateral.
- A lower creditworthiness of the borrower.
Solution
The correct answer is B.
The quality of the collateral is one of the determinants of the repo margin. The higher the quality of the collateral, the lower the level of the repo margin.