Following the 2008 crisis, financial regulation moved from the periphery to the centre of the global economic agenda. Risk discussions were no longer confined to technocratic circles but were taken up by the financial industry as a whole, including policy makers and the general public. We saw the increasing importance of Chief Risk Officers (CROs) and recognised the need for risk management to be embedded across all levels of an organisation. In 2014, Avantage Reply launched its CRO Insights Journal to respond to these shifts.
The CRO Insight Journal is an Avantage Reply publication that seeks to help the industry to better understand, measure and assess the consequences of risk and risk management in the financial industry. It aims to be a forum for knowledge-sharing and the cross-fertilisation of risk practices across all industry segments.
The 2015 RiskMinds International conference in Amsterdam was the 22nd edition of this prestigious event. Avantage Reply was delighted to be a sponsor for the second consecutive year and has marked the occasion with the launch of the third edition of our CRO Insights Journal Special RiskMinds.
This issue features four distinguished interviewees discussing key themes from this year’s conference.
Firstly, Hedwige Nuyens, Managing Director of the London-based International Banking Federation (IBFed), will touch on the critical nexus between regulation and business strategy. Another important area featured is stress-testing. Ulrik Lackschewitz, Chief Risk Officer of HSH Nordbank, describes the challenges and prospects for the industry on this very timely issue. Thirdly, Vincent Maagdenberg, the Chief Risk Officer of ING Nederland, gives us an overview on an issue that will likely dominate discussions at this year’s event – the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). He will walk us through some of the lessons learnt by his bank as we mark the first anniversary of the SSM. Last but not least, the third edition of the CRO Insight Journal will discuss the challenges and opportunities for risk information technology (IT) amid an increasingly demanding regulatory environment. We scrutinise the impact of these demands in the areas of IT systems and data as well as explore opportunities presented by latest technological developments. Examples of such opportunities are the use of Big Data and the blockchain. We speak with Filipe Teixeira, Head of Financial Risk Factory for Unicredit Business Integration Solutions (UBIS), for insights into this next-frontier topic.