Lower VaR to boost liquidity?

I was given an interesting thought this week by a contact. “Now that the Lehman debacle is more than one year behind us, those extreme days are rolling off most banks’ VaR calculations. In my case, I’ve seen a dramatic drop in VaR over the past two weeks. Most banks and macro funds use VaR or some variant that looks at the past year’s worth of data, and will now be encouraged, if only indirectly, to take on more risk,” he says, adding: “Many client credit systems work similarly, so clients will also be able to come to the party.”