This credit risk represents the charge-offs that will most likely be realized against an institution's operating income as of the financial statement end date.
The allowance is a topic of much regulatory scrutiny, and a review of the ALLL methodology is a significant portion of a financial institution's safety and soundness exam because it is important for federal bank examiners to ensure that an institution has a sufficient amount of capital in the allowance reserve.
The allowance is also significant to bank management and directors as it has a large impact on an institution's earnings and capital.
An important regulatory statement describing the ALLL is the 2006 Interagency Policy Statement, jointly issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS).
[6] Some of the general challenges that financial institutions face with regards to the ALLL estimation include the manual, time-intensive nature of the reserve estimation process each month or quarter; producing adequate documentation and disclosures; incorporating new accounting standards and regulations released by FASB and federal regulatory bodies, and increased scrutiny on the assumptions used to determine the ASC 450-20 and ASC 310-10-35 reserves.