Has Internal Audit Measured Up? What Do We Do Next?

The following article was first published in the Global Risk Update published by Risk Reward Limited.

Over the past few years banks have constantly been in the news, unfortunately rarely for the right reasons. A number of different scandals have hurt both the reputation and image of the industry. Foremost amongst these scandals are:

The Financial Crisis—a well documented global disaster
A Foreclosure Crisis—the reaction of banks to mortgage defaulters
Libor Manipulation—affected the most important borrowing/lending rate in the world
Rogue Trading—several episodes where unauthorised trading exposures lead to huge losses
Energy Markets Manipulation—subject of major new investigation by the SEC/CFTC
Money Laundering—a number of major banks have paid very hefty fines
Insider Trading—has involved some major figures on Wall Street and the City
Product Mis-Selling—massive fines for major banks

This does not make good reading for anyone involved in the industry but auditors in particular have real cause for concern.

Advertisement

Banks, Risk, Culture: What Role Does The Culture of Society Play In Banks’ Behaviour?

The role of the wider society in shaping the culture and risk profile of banks and other organisations might be more important than most people think. Understanding that role is extremely important for bank executives and risk professionals if they are to build organisations that are sustainable, economically and competitively, in the long term.

Why Customer Culture Is Far More Important Than Risk Culture

This is a follow up to an earlier series of articles on risk culture in banks the last of which can be accessed here.

The best institutions and organisations are those which define themselves in terms of how they have they can best serve their customers (and the wider community) and not how they intend to manage risks.

This is a lesson that bankers, regulators and governments all need to learn—the future success of the banking industry depends not on more rules and regulations but how well banks transform their customer culture. As we shall see, that has very little to do with how they measure risk.

The Role of HR: To Out The Megalomaniacs?

Is Anglo Saxon Culture A Problem For Banking?

For some time now I have been asking myself why the world’s leading bankers have still been unable to talk directly to the masses in order to apologise for their role in creating a financial crisis in which so many people suffered and commit to doing their best in order to avoid the same thing happening again.

Book Review: Clearing the Bull, The Financial Crisis and Why Banks Need a Human Transformation

Book review – A very interesting review and response from an HR professional to the HR issues raised in Clearing The Bull.

The Question That All Bankers Should Be Asking: Why Are We Here?

The following article was originally published in the October edition of The Journal of Business Compliance.

INTRO: Jonathan Ledwidge is an author and risk professional with more than 20 years experience in investment banking and has strong views and undeniably good questions. In this opinion article, the first under the Speakers Corner column of the Journal, he asks questions of everyone in the corporate world, not merely bankers, but industrialists, regulators and all those associated with the formation of governance frameworks, the promotion of meaningful corporate culture and their implementation. He considers the many pitfalls into which a generation of business and political leaders have fallen and the consequences these have had on regulation and internal control practices. The scandals that have come to light within the banking sector have overshadowed scandals of corruption and misselling in other industries that just as crucially require answers and reflections of the existential question: Why are we here?

“Tell me again Maximus, why are we here?”

JP Morgan Whale Trade Losses: Important Lessons For Auditors And Risk Professionals

Some more information has come to light on the more than $7 billion “Whale Trade” derivative losses at JP Morgan—that total being comprised of an amount of over $6 billion in losses on the trade and a further amount of almost $1 billion in fines.

In an article on Bloomberg entitled JP Morgan’s Biggest Mistake, author William D Cohan provides us with somewhat of an insider’s overview on the problems that led to the Whale Trade losses—his sister-in-law sat on the Audit Committee. This article summarises some of Cohan’s main points and identifies the lessons that auditors and other risk professionals should be learning in order to avoid making similar mistakes.

The New Paradigm: Major Central Banks Don’t Fail

Warren Buffet has called the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, “The Greatest Hedge Fund In History”.  That is because the Fed as it is commonly known has persisted in printing money and buying $85 billion in bonds each month in order to artificially support the US and by extension the global financial markets.

This is quite possibly the recipe for another financial disaster.

Usain Bolt dresses up for Oktoberfest (photo); signs new contract with Puma

Usain Bolt in Lederhosen! Mein Gott!