Risk Minds 2012

PwC sponsored Risk Minds 2012, the world's largest and longest running risk management conference in the industry which was held in Amsterdam for the first time last year.

Background

The financial services industry is still facing a high level of distrust, the investors think banks are too complex, opaque and their future is uncertain and regulators no longer trust the Basel formula for several asset classes.

In addition, the following key financial sector trends were discussed:

• Banks can no longer fund themselves more cheaply than corporates, which fundamentally Challenges the credit intermediary role traditionally played by banks;
• Capital and liquidity rules are making current operating models structurally unprofitable;
• Electronic trading will compress margins making life even tougher;
• Regulators are focussed primarily on securitisation and reduction of maturity mismatches in new shadow banking proposals but could be missing key activities such as peer-to-peer lending or payments market participants.

Key themes

In this context, the following topics stood out:

• Regulatory reform agenda – Several speakers focused on how difficult it all is, especially since many of the rules are not yet known. However, there was not as much focus on the fact that the world has changed, that business models have to change, and that people need to ask themselves what a bank is really for and what the bank of the future looks like.
• Several speakers recognised that recovery and resolution planning had been a valuable journey, but outlined that the practical implementation of such detailed plans was still questionable, especially in light of the lack of a global resolution regime.
• Risk Culture – Focusing mostly on the ‘external’, visible aspect of culture – behaviours. There was not much recognition of the deeper, ‘internal’ aspects, namely values and beliefs. The industry appears to be struggling to define and measure risk culture.
• There was renewed focus on stress testing and risk appetite and the linkage with strategic/capital planning, with the incorporation of new regulatory constraints such as liquidity and leverage.
• Greater needs for transparency. The industry needs to build more confidence in risk management measures as the divergence of implementation of regulatory guidelines makes comparison across the industry very difficult; there were some suggestions to compare firms' risk assumptions against the industry by estimating risk based on benchmark portfolios.

Monday 3rd December 2012

Dan Ryan
Recovery & resolution planning: Analysis of year one actions & implications for the future global banking operating model

Tuesday 4th December, 2012

Kevin Burrowes
Chairman’s opening address

John P. Garvey
Our risk strategy is the business strategy! Integrating finance and risk functions into a holistic business model for the future

Kevin Burrowes
The risk manager’s view on the economy: Where do we see the next crisis coming from & how can we ensure bank risk management is well positioned to weather the next storm?

Phil Rivett
What does it mean to be a risk manager today?
How can we retain and attract real talent to the risk management industry & what skill set should we be looking for to cope with the challenges a modern risk manager faces?

Chris Matten
Risk culture in a downturn environment: How can we generate good risk culture when financial institutions are deleveraging, de-risking and cost cutting & what should we be investing in now to build the financial business model of the future?

Wednesday 5th December

Chris Matten
Too much regulation? - Are we at risk of curing the disease but killing the patient?

Thursday 6th December

Gilly Lord
Liquidity risk modelling & management

John Elliott
Life with the LCR: Restructuring balance sheets - what parts of the business do we have to cut or shut down?

Eduardo Viegas
Forecasting future market bubbles: Making use of the multi-dimensional market fragility index to identify and monitor unsustainable booms and forthcoming busts

Click here to view and download the conference programme, speaker list and line-up, attendee list and go to the ICBI Risk Minds website for further information.

Click here to download the contacts.