Aligning operational risk management (ORM) with strategy could enable strategic change, improve business performance and enhance customers’ experience for financial institutions. However, only half of firms surveyed with less than $250 billion in assets leverage ORM to challenge business models, according to a report by KPMG LLP and The Risk Management Association (RMA).
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Marc Strackx spoke about biometrics and security during the International Risk Congress in Brussel in relation to countering Financial Economic Crime. In today’s digitally enabled world, where cybercrime, theft and fraud are on the rise, organizations require the most secure, accurate, and reliable identity authentication methods for data access, physical access, and general security. System’s security has become a challenge with attacks on all fronts – not only externally by outsiders but internally by insider manipulation. The implementation of technological safeguards is, therefore, more vital than ever, but with the dramatic increase in networks, devices, connections, and applications this has become highly complex. Continue reading…

Dina-Perla Portnaar

When I type “Chief Spiritual Officer” in the search bar of LinkedIn, I get 65 hits. Some findings do not even match. All Chief Spiritual Officers come from the US and just one comes from Switserland. I find the results shockingly low and disappointing, because every organization needs a Chief Spiritual Officer to get through all the transitions and to stay future-proof. As long as organizations – and especially the corporate world – laugh about spirituality, do not want to transcend blind greed and do not want to approach mission and vision from a standpoint of soulfulness, we run great risks as a society. As long as we shake off spirituality as whoo-whoo, as long as we only mistakenly link spirituality again and again to religion, ideology or theology, as a society we run great risks.
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Commission sets out EU’s economic and social priorities for 2019 and confirms Italy’s serious non-compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact. The Commission adopted the Autumn package which represents the beginning of the 2019 European Semester cycle of economic and social policy coordination. Today’s package is based on the Autumn 2018 Economic Forecast and builds on the priorities set out in President Juncker’s 2018 State of the Union address.
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In her speech, during the Fintech Festival in Singapore, Christine Lagarde, IMF Managing Director, recognized that digitalization has its influence on the financial sector. So she said: “A new wind is blowing, that of digitalization. In this new world, we meet anywhere, any time. The town square is back – virtually, on our smartphones. We exchange information, services, even emojis, instantly… peer to peer, person to person. We float through a world of information, where data is the “new gold”- despite growing concerns over privacy, and cyber-security. A world in which millennials are reinventing how our economy works, phone in hand. And this is key: money itself is changing. We expect it to become more convenient and user-friendly, perhaps even less serious-looking.”
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The European Commission issued its latest reports on steps taken by Bulgaria and Romania to meet their commitments on judicial reform and the fight against corruption, and in the case of Bulgaria organised crime, in the context of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. The report on Bulgaria looks at the progress made over the past year to meet the final 17 recommendations issued by the Commission in the January 2017 report and positively notes Bulgaria’s continued efforts and determination to implement those recommendations. The Commission is confident that Bulgaria – if it pursues the current positive trend – will be able to fulfil all the remaining recommendations and thereby the outstanding benchmarks. This will enable the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism process for Bulgaria to then be concluded before the end of this Commission’s mandate – in line with the orientation given by President Jean-Claude Juncker when he started his term of office.
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Cappitech, a leading provider of regulatory reporting and intelligence technology for the financial services industry, announced the results of a survey of over 100 European buy- and sell-side compliance decision-makers.  The survey examined how MiFID II regulation has affected financial services organisations and how these plan to tackle new regulations such as Best Execution and RTS27/28 in order to improve their business processes.
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The BIS’s Financial Stability Institute (FSI) and the G20’s Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) convened the fourth biennial conference on global standard-setting bodies (SSBs) and innovative financial inclusion on 25-26 October 2018 in Basel, Switzerland. The conference came on the heels of the launching at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings of the Bali Fintech Agenda – a 12-element blueprint for harnessing fintech’s opportunities, including for financial inclusion and financial sector development, while mitigating emerging risks to vulnerable retail customers and to the integrity and stability of the global financial system.
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It was a clash of old and new. In the lobby of Brussels’ Plaza Hotel were ornate chandeliers, royal portraits and a marble staircase. In the adjacent conference room, compliance officers from across Europe were discussing how the latest trends in technology can help them meet the growing risks to businesses. The experts agreed that some of the most promising risk technologies leverage artificial Intelligence, blockchain and biometrics.
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by Melvyn Morrison

On 23rd June 2016, British citizens voted by a slim majority (52% versus 48%) to leave the European Union. Nine months later, on 29th March 2017, the British government triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to formally notify the European Council about its intention to leave the European Union. This not only marked the start of a 2-year period for negotiating the exit terms, but also prompted a discussion about the future rights of expatriates. The UK is thus due to leave the EU on 29th March 2019 after the exit terms have been agreed. If the terms of a so-called ‘divorce settlement’ are not announced by 21st January 2019, several options are available including leaving the EU without a deal, and delaying departure by seeking extension of the deadline with the unanimous support of the UK and the other 27 EU countries. However, the UK’s relationship with the EU will still remain largely the same until after the transition period that is presently scheduled to end on 31st December 2020. UK expatriates would certainly have liked to have been formally consulted about crucial decisions affecting their futures.  Continue reading…