The 20th annual RISK USA Conference organized by Risk Magazine in New York on October 20-23, 2014 showcased the latest developments in risk management, best practices and critical issues impacting the financial industry. 

The Conference keynote speakers included among others Ben Golub, CRO, Blackrock; Carlo di Florio, CRO FINRA; Stuart Lewis, Group CRO Deutsche Bank. The focus was on critical issues in four areas: Enterprise Risk Management, Derivatives Trading, Portfolio and Investment Risk an

[Author's Note: The field of enterprise risk management is growing rapidly. Our new series, brought to you by the LogicManager Analyst Team, will keep you up to date on the latest news and developments in ERM.]

Many business cases for enterprise risk management programs begin with what senior management can expect in terms of return on investment (ROI). Until recently, this argument proved to be a challenging one to make due to the lack of tangible research on the subject.  

This year, an independ

Last month I mentioned a recent webinar I ran on Risk Appetite in which I pointed out that an articulated risk appetite statement is only the beginning.  You need managers to operationalise it so that staff can live it.

One part of operationalising risk appetite is through communication to staff.  Another part is through implementing a regime of risk tolerance monitoring.  In plain language that means: monitoring processes and systems to see if they are operating as they were designed to.  

There

Insurance regulators have made the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) into one of the global Insurance Core Principles that need to be adopted in all countries.

By Dave Ingram

Several countries have already adopted an ORSA requirement and in all cases, there is a need for a report to share with the regulator that documents the ORSA process.

The ORSA report itself is an example of risk management disclosure. A company that has no history of disclosure of risk management information may struggle

In my Trusted Advisor program I discuss the concept of wisdom with participants.  We draw out what it means and what it looks like.  I always ensure that simplicity gets onto the whiteboard.  At the end of the day, we all know that when we hear about something new that is very, very simple we are singularly impressed.

For many of us we have created complexity in what we do or deliver for seemingly many good reasons.  Take aircraft for example.  Around a century ago we went from a base structure w

The market size and app richness in the new payments area begs the question, where is this all going? And what should the perfect payment solution of the future look like? In this final part of the blog series I look at issues that should be addressed to fast-forward the way we conduct payments.

1. (Sore) Point of Sale technology
   If merchants are not convinced that new POS solutions will give them an advantage, wider distribution will be hard to achieve. Although some first movers have already starte

To clarify, the question I am asking is twofold.  One relates to the perceptions created for the end client, management and the Board.  The second relates to governance.

Taking the second question first, does having risk and audit report through to one person mean that that person has a conflict of interest? When might this be the case?  Under what circumstances?  Does it depend on the specific arrangements for risk and audit or is it simply better practice to not have them linked?  Are they link

CMS Wire's Norman Marks recent article, "Why Risk Management Technology Projects Fail," captures a common but limited viewpoint of Risk Management that limits its ability to succeed in any environment, whether supported by software, spreadsheets, or pen & paper.

"To be successful, a risk program has to be designed to enable managers to make intelligent, risk-informed decisions every day. The requirements have to include the perspectives of both the risk officer and of management... You need to en

In the third of a four-part series, Markus Sander tests the latest payments innovations. This week: cashless and cardless payments.

I'd like to introduce myself in this post. Having served in Defense for 20 years, I gained lots of experience in Crisis Management and Risk Management. Those experiences helped me in many other areas of life and profession. In Production, Marketing, and in Management I applied my previous experience and could get through successfully. I found the Global Risk community interesting and packed with lots of information. I also write of several sites on Various topics. I have written more than 630 ar

Implementation deadlines have been and gone but banks are still living in Dodd-Frank’s shadow. One of the issues is that best practice hasn’t yet been agreed: the regulators still need to clarify standards. This is leaving many fumbling around in the dark for the right route to compliance.

While the regulators iron out the standards, several financial institutions have cobbled together ‘half-way house’ applications so they can tick the compliance box. Some have even resorted to Excel for a quick

I thought this article by the UNSW Business School put forward a well-balanced argument for and against the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ push for changes to corporations law to afford directors broader protection (see AICD article here). 

In essence the argument goes that if directors feel too much at risk of personal liability they either won’t act as a director or they will be risk averse in their decision making.  Being too risk averse is bad for the economy and bad for sharehol

In the second of a four-part series, Markus Sander tests the latest payments innovations. Last week Markus shared his experience using mobile application payments. This week: crypto currencies - from Ripples to rupees.

Two US credit institutions recently announced its willingness to integrate a virtual currency network into its cross-border remittances business. This move comes a few months after the first German bank made their plan public to integrate the same network. Called Ripple, it is an i

How can the 33rd largest company in America compromise the personal data of 56 million customers? And how can a company that spent $1 billion dollars to “digitize” itself take nine months to identify a breach? Most importantly, how can a company once cited for leadership and success in risk management fail to…well, manage risk?

Cyber-crime expert Brian Krebs asks “Are we spending most of our money on trying to keep the bad guys out or trying to detect as soon as possible when the bad guys get in?

Everyone’s talking about the brave new world of payments. The mainstream press and even my family seem to know about everything from mobile and peer-to-peer payments to crypto-currencies.

I was researching about decision-making (again) recently and I came across this article by the late Dr Russell Ackoff, a “Systems Thinker”, called “Why few organisations adopt systems thinking”.

In the article Dr Ackoff writes about how organisations are naturally resistant to change and opines on our tendency to find a scapegoat when things go wrong from something we have done, although we seldom need to find a scapegoat for something we did not do.

Ackoff says: “The deterioration and failu

I was planning from a long time to provide you with some initial information regarding intellectual property protection in Bulgaria. Well, finally the time to do this has come.

Lets first answer to a question – What actually is Intellectual Property? (for these that don’t know).

An objects of intellectual property rights are intangible assets with economic value, expressed in a manner and an objective form, set out in a legal rule, which primarily are the result of creative activity.

In national, i

Home Depot hacked. http://t.co/qZROzHKWr2. This #risk preventable with #ERMSoftware. So why are ERM Programs failing? http://t.co/gcbLO6wCjz

-- Steven Minsky (@SteveMinsky) September 2, 2014

The goal of an ERM program is to put your organization in the best position to manage uncertainty, and to provide transparency into areas of vulnerability so businesses can make better decisions. Risk Management Software supports that process by providing insights and analytics that aren't obvious to the front