European organisations need to improve management of top risks

20 November 2014

Risk management is developing into a strategic function within European organisations. At the same time, risk management can contribute much more as its strategic role grows. Currently, risk managers are not satisfied with the level of mitigation for six of the top 10 risks “that keep their CEO awake at night”.
These are key findings from the 2014 Risk Management Benchmarking Survey conducted earlier this year by the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA). Now its 7th edition, the FERMA Benchmarking Survey this year received a record number of 850 responses from 21 European countries.

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Bruno Colmant

Bruno Colmant

Head of Macro Research Bank Degroof Petercam

Thomas Piketty and the money illusion

18 November 2014

In his book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, the French economist Thomas Piketty gives a stunning demonstration of how capital has become concentrated in the hands of a few and grown faster than the economy, except during the 30 years of post-war growth. This trend has inevitably made the rich even richer and caused the inequality gap to widen. Labour has thus become a casualty of capital. Piketty is fascinating. I had the occasion to be a modest participant at his side in a discussion at the University of Brussels. Ever since, the conviction that I had met one of the most brilliant political economists of our time has never left me.

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Paul Westcott

Paul Westcott

Senior Product Manager Compliance at Dun & Bradstreet Ltd.

Why BCBS 239 matters to everybody – not just Financial Services

07 November 2014

In my role as Product Manager in the compliance space, I am very fortunate to have a number of colleagues in different disciplines that I regularly have ‘water cooler’ conversations with (or more often on the comfy chairs in the coffee break out area as I am a sucker for good coffee). One such person I regularly touch base with is data governance expert Malcom Chisolm. Malcom is well known as an independent consultant with over 25 years of experience in data-related disciplines, and has worked in a variety of sectors including finance, manufacturing, government, pharmaceuticals, telecoms. He asked me a simple question, “What are you doing around BCBS 239”?  Continue reading…

Understand clients’ business models to stay relevant

03 November 2014

Insurers who adapt to the changing needs of their business clients will succeed in future over those who stick to traditional insurance approaches, Airmic has told underwriters. Paul Hopkin, the association’s technical director, challenged the market to innovate to restore relevance – but stressed that new products must address the needs of 21st century business models. Continue reading…

Bruno Colmant

Bruno Colmant

Head of Macro Research Bank Degroof Petercam

The real crisis is about the role of government

30 October 2014
Knowledge Base

Various labels – subprime, bank lending, sovereign debt and monetary – have been used since 2008 to describe the economic crisis. Yet its scope doubtlessly extends far beyond these spheres. The crisis poses a fundamental question for society about the role of government, squeezed between unpredictable global corporations and public debt that requires refinancing to guarantee social order. Gorged on debt, governments are hostages to banking sectors, themselves prisoners of central banks that need to support private enterprise by constantly providing liquidity. Continue reading…

Your Trade Credit Risk policy and your AML policy – Poles apart or 2 sides of the same coin ?

29 October 2014
Knowledge Base

It is a well-worn phrase “we need to do more with less”! Or in other words, can we ensure that more than one task we have to do in our day jobs can be incorporated in a single effort to ‘gain efficiencies’ or, in real speak, ultimately save money ? So I thought I would look at a typical AML and typical Trade Credit policy and see just how different or similar they were. Now, I do not profess to be a compliance officer nor have I had the stress of being a CFO so I will accept that the devil is always in the detail. However, here are just a few areas I thought seemed to have a very real sense of similarity. Here are just five examples.

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