Registration and refreshments

Banking: improving risk management to withstand future shocks

• Is the world about to experience more financial market turmoil, possibly sparked by a sovereign debt crisis… or are we witnessing the beginning of a sustained recovery?
• How do you manage risk in times of great uncertainty.
• Self-improvement: what the banking sector is doing to put its own house in order, including implementing the risk management recommendations of the Institute of International Finance, the British Bankers Association and other industry bodies.
• External discipline: what international and national regulators – such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors and the Financial Services Authority – are doing to oblige banks to strengthen their risk management frameworks.
• The benefits: better risk governance, greater integration of all risk activities, more accurate risk data and modelling, robust stress-testing and changes in pay and bonus policies to reduce excessive risk-taking.
• The drawbacks: higher capital and liquidity requirements will reduce lending capacity

Asset Management: plotting new directions

• Where next for financial markets and asset values?
• How asset managers – traditional and alternative – have improved their risk management since the financial crisis, including risk governance and taking an enterprise-wide approach.
• The work of asset management/capital markets industry associations like the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), the Securities Industry and Financial Market Association (SIFMA), the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) and the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA)
• How regulation is shaping investment firms’ attitude to risk, including recommendations from the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the European and UK regulatory authorities.

Regulation: helping financial institutions to help themselves

• What regulators are doing to encourage firms to improve their risk management strategies and practices – and increase their capital and liquidity cushions – to be better prepared for the next crisis and to promote global financial stability.
• International regulatory initiatives from the Financial Stability Board, the Basel Committee (“Basel III”), IOSCO, IAIS, the Joint Forum, the Senior Supervisors’ Group, the IASB and others.
• UK and European regulatory initiatives.
• Areas of focus: risk modelling; stress-testing; leverage ratio; increasing transparency to reduce risk in the financial system; addressing counter-cyclicality; aligning salaries and bonuses with long-term value and risk management; building adequate and integrated IT systems; risk governance.

Panel Session: The rise and rise of the CRO

• Enhancing corporate governance practices in banks and other financial institutions: mandatory and self-regulatory measures to define the role of the supervisory board and the management board, especially in relation to approving and overseeing the organisation’s risk strategy, and where the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) fits in.
• The CRO’s over-arching role – to head up an independent and authoritative risk management function with direct access to the boards.
• The CRO’s specific duties – to identify and manage risks in individual entities, and across the enterprise, using appropriate systems and controls.

Panel Moderator:
Michael Imeson, Contributing Editor, The Banker

Concluding remarks

Alastair Sim, Senior Director, SAS