Where is the Common Thread?
Thanks to “Rube Goldberg infrastructure” and a lack of attention, banks “have been mixing together data that have no common thread,” said Allan D. Grody, founder of Financial InterGroup Holdings. “Now is our chance to fix the plumbing.” Grody was the third of four panellists to address the July 22, 2014 GARP webinar on changes to risk data aggregation and reporting. His talk continued a theme of improved risk data management that he has spoken about before to GARP audiences. The “astonishing” aftermath of the 2008 Lehman fiasco—where banks were scrambling to determine exposure to a bankrupt counterparty—“has become the […]
Swap Data Reporting
One of the primary purposes of swap data reporting, as explained by James Schwartz, Counsel at Morrison & Foerster LLP, is to permit regulators to identify the swap exposures of market participants—which they found themselves unable to do during the financial crisis. Schwartz spoke as part of a four-person panel on challenges to risk data aggregation, reporting and recordkeeping organized by GARP on July 22, 2014. Schwartz gave an overview of the US swap data reporting requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act. “It’s important to note timing,” he said with regard to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulations and Basel […]
Challenges to Risk Data Aggregation: Overview
Will financial institutions be able to respond to new challenges of risk data aggregation, reporting and record-keeping? Peter J. Green, Partner of Morrison & Foerster LLP, opened the four-panellist webinar organized by GARP on July 22, 2014, to discuss new risk data aggregation, risk reporting and recordkeeping principles. He indicated that the recent financial crisis had caused regulators to see many gaps in risk reporting and aggregation due to deficiencies in banks’ IT and data architecture. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) gave a mandate to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) “to develop principles for effective risk data aggregation […]
Risk Ratings 2. “Hundreds of Spreadsheets”
“There were hundreds of different spreadsheet templates floating around,” said Christopher Hansert, Product Manager at Bosch Software Innovations, and the second of two presenters at a GARP webinar on the impact of new capital rules on risk ratings, held June 24, 2014. He presented a case study of an unnamed US commercial bank. Due to an acquisition during the period of regulatory change, he said that the bank had a “heterogeneous set of platforms, models, and inconsistent ratings. They wanted one robust and centralized” risk rating system. Inconsistencies in the risk rating process increased the likelihood of error, Hansert pointed […]
Risk Ratings 1. The Big Choke Points
“The inter-connectedness of the regulatory landscape has increased dramatically,” said Balachander Lakshmanan, Director at Deloitte & Touche LLP. He was the first of two presenters at the June 24, 2014, webinar sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals to discuss the impact of capital rules on risk rating systems. In the wake of the financial crisis, new regulations—Basel, Volcker rule, Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR)—have proliferated. Due to changes in capital rules, new operating models are starting to emerge at banks, said Lakshmanan. There are requests for “spot calculations” or snapshots of a bank at any given time. […]
Counterparty Credit Risk 3. Modelling
“Counterparty credit risk is particularly difficult” to model due to its “bilateral nature” and the fact it often covers more than one year, said Rajan Singenellore, Global Head of the Default Risk and Valuation Group at Bloomberg. He was the third of three presenters at a GARP webinar on counterparty risk held on May 20, 2014. Singenellore divided the challenges to modelling counterparty risk into three categories. The first, the counterparty’s probability of default (PD), depends on multiple factors and requires estimates of recovery. The second category is how to estimate the future value of securities, which depends on the […]
Counterparty Credit Risk 2. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Unseen
“Data and its accuracy are key to making this work,” said Robert Scanlon, referring to counterparty credit risk. Scanlon is the former Group Chief Credit Officer of Standard Chartered Bank and current Principal, Scanlon Associates. As the second of three speakers at a GARP webinar on counterparty risk held on May 20, 2014, Scanlon spoke from years of experience with risk practices. First, the good part of calculating counterparty credit risk. Scanlon said there is plenty of data already, especially for consumer/retail transactions. “You can start with a steady state assumption and get more data as time goes on. Ask […]
Counterparty Credit Risk 1. Regulatory Landscape
“Things got out of control very quickly” during the collapse of Lehman Brothers, said Cady North, Senior Finance Analyst for Bloomberg Government, as she compared counterparty credit risk analysis before and after Dodd-Frank legislation was enacted. North was the first of three speakers at a webinar held on May 20, 2014, sponsored by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. The webinar attracted a record number of registrants. Prior to the financial crisis of 2007, “no regulatory reporting was going on for counterparty risk on a regular basis,” North said. There was lack of a common legal entity identifier for Lehman […]
A Day in the Life: Risk Managers
Financial risk management is a stimulating and worthwhile livelihood, according to four panellists who convened on May 14, 2014, to describe their careers in the industry. A rainy afternoon did not discourage an audience of about sixty risk professionals and students from attending the meeting of the Toronto Chapter of the Global Association of Risk Professionals which was held in the new KPMG offices on Bay Street. Xiaobo Wang, Director of Credit Risk Audit at Scotiabank, acted as the evening’s moderator. He posed several questions to four panellists: the nature of their work, what is a “typical day,” and how […]
Model Risk 2. Look Beyond the Numbers
What does the near-disaster on London’s Millennium Bridge have to teach us about model risk? “The bridge, inaugurated with great fanfare by the Queen in 2000, filled with people and began to sway so strongly it had to be immediately shut down,” said Ravi Chari, Manager, Americas Risk Practice at the SAS Institute. “When the bridge was modelled during development, the developers did pose the question ‘what is the probability of 10,000 people walking in unison on the bridge?’ And the answer was ‘practically zero’—but that’s exactly what happened on Day One!” Chari was the second of two speakers on […]