Earthquakes kill, and so does bribery
“Bribery and corruption are not victimless crimes,” said Hilary Rosenberg, Managing Director and Global Head of Anti-Bribery & Corruption at Standard Chartered Bank. To drive home the point, she showed a brief video in which the pile of rubble from an earthquake is compared to a house collapsing because corruption allowed an unsafe building to be approved. Furthermore, corruption “can hinder economic progress and destroy people’s trust in their government,” Rosenberg said. She was the first of two speakers at the one-hour webinar “Corruption and Corporate Governance” sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) on October 30, 2019. Anti-corruption policy […]
A Good Start…
Financial risks due to climate change are receiving more attention of late, particularly for investors and regulators, but how far along are firms in addressing the issues? A report on climate risk management at financial firms tabled on June 28, 2019, sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), answers the question with its subtitle: “A Good Start, But More Work to Do.” The report is co-authored by Jo Paisley, Co-President, and Maxine Nelson, Senior Vice President at GARP. “Our sample covered 20 banks and seven other financial institutions … from across the globe. These firms have a global […]
Wanted: Business Expertise
Artificial intelligence can be expensive and tricky to implement. Is it worth the trouble? Two organizations recently decided to pose the question to those who were working in financial institutions. “Due to budget constraints, a company might not always be able to apply artificial intelligence. But, to those who can, the benefits have become clear,” said Mahdi Amri, Partner and National AI Services Leader, Canada at Omnia, which is the artificial intelligence practice at Deloitte. On January 24, 2019, Amri was the second of two panellists who discussed early results of a joint survey by SAS and the Global Association […]
Operationalizing A.I.
How pervasive is the use of artificial intelligence in the field of financial risk management? What are the key challenges in AI implementation over the next two to three years? These issues were examined in early 2019 via the webinar, Operationalizing AI and Risk in Banking, sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). “We found exceptionally high rates of AI usage among survey respondents,” said Katherine Taylor, Senior Data Scientist at the software company SAS. On January 24, 2019, Taylor was the first of two panellists who presented a “sneak peek” at a joint survey by SAS and […]
Origins of Canadian Banking
The financial crisis of 2007-2008 triggered a worldwide recession. The American and European banking systems experienced massive losses, takeovers, and taxpayer-funded bailouts. Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock, European debt crisis, … and the after-effects are still being felt. Canada’s banking system did have some shaky moments, as a recently published analysis of its asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) predicament showed. On the whole, however, Canada’s banks withstood the financial crisis relatively well and the financial system maintained its liquidity, solvency, and profitability. The history of the divergence in the Canadian and American banking systems is recounted in a new book. From […]
8 Ways to Look at Deforestation Risk
“Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air,” wrote Franklin D. Roosevelt. Looking at the economic side, what does the loss of forests mean to global markets? “Deforestation is a risk to the supply chain,” said Gabriel Thoumi, Director Capital Markets at Climate Advisers. “It puts billions of dollars at risk.” He was the first of four presenters at the May 4, 2017, webinar sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. He began with a summary of the activities of Chain Reaction Research, a group which has been actively assessing the sustainability of the supply chains of […]
Environmental Risk: 5 Lessons Learned
“Deforestation causes severe environmental damage,” said Hilde Jervan, chief advisor of the Council of Ethics of the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) of Norway. The scale of deforestation of tropical forests is large, and it is occurring within areas that are ecologically important, thereby aggravating the loss of biodiversity. The GPFG has strong ethical guidelines passed by the Norwegian Parliament in 2004. Jervan discussed these in light of the actual example of tropical deforestation. She was the second of four presenters at the May 4, 2017, webinar on Supply Chain Risk due to Deforestation sponsored by the Global Association of […]
Platform of the Future
What will be the ideal modelling platform of future bankers? It will need to contain key functionalities in model execution, scenario management, and a “risk engine” that will deliver answers for multiple horizons at the loan level. Furthermore, it should implement the most advanced modelling suites, reduce the quants’ time to develop models, and contain simulation capabilities for stress testing and beyond. This bold vision of the future was presented by Martim Rocha, Advisory Business Solution Manager at SAS. He was the second of two presenters at the February 25, 2016, webinar offered by the Global Association of Risk Professionals […]
Harnessing Your Risks
Before your company undertakes economic risks, what systems should be firmly in place? “Good risk management allows us to take risks we wouldn’t normally do,” said Brenda Boultwood , Senior Vice President of GRC Solutions at MetricStream. (GRC is the acronym for governance, risk management and compliance.) She was the second of two panellists at the webinar titled Explore Your Opportunity Landscape by Harnessing Your Risks, sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals on November 18, 2015. A company needs superior risk intelligence in order to understand the risks they plan to harness. Technology can be leveraged to capitalize […]
Lagging in Technology Solutions
When it comes to new regulatory requirements for advanced models in financial stress testing, are banks meeting expectations? Over the past two years, relatively good progress has been made in financial models and managing data for stress testing, said Tom Kimner, Director of Global Risk Operations at SAS, “but less progress has been made in technology and reporting.” He was the second of two panellists at a webinar on September 22, 2015, sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). He was presenting the findings from a survey report, “Stress Testing: A View from the Trenches,” that was jointly […]