PRA Final Notice on Co-op Bank - "cautious", with blurry lines...

"Two straws please"...

The PRA published a Final Notice last week regarding the numerous shortcomings of a UK bank over the last few years, which included the news of a colossal £121m fine which the PRA would have levied if the entity wasn't still losing wedge faster than a mojito in a cement mixer.

I'm sure some of us chortled at the Chrystal Methodist headlines a couple of years ago when the Non-Executive Chair of the UK's Co-operative Bank had his numerous vices sold to the highest tabloid bidder by a rented acquaintance. I covered some of the initial fallout on here, themed mostly around reputational risk and fit and proper persons, given the exponential effects of the exposé on the ultimate failure of the Group in its form at the time.

A document covering part of Co-op's demise, specifically its Bank, was released last week by the PRA,

The PRA's Final Notice to the Co-op Bank is issued publicly, and highlights where the firm breached what were at the time the FSA's Principles for Business, replaced since the PRA/FCA divorce by the PRA's Fundamental Rules.

Included in the Final Notice on this matter was a number of matters which risk practitioners should be salivating over, given the failures which led to this punishment include

• Inappropriate culture,
• Internal control framework failures,
• Ineffective risk management policies, and, the jackpot,
• A "three lines of defence" model "...flawed in both design and operation"!

The activities demonstrating this include a woeful suite of incomplete management information, three horrendously chancy accounting interpretations benefiting the balance sheet at the expense of real-world accuracy, and a suite of defensive line failures, all of which are followed through in forensic detail.

I have sectioned my notes below for my own use, particularly given the PRA goes on something of a limb here and provide usable definitions for certain terms which I suspect many practitioners would benefit from reading. The PRA (and EIOPA) generally try to dodge requests for definitions, so while the peg is square and the hole is round, it might be as good as you get!

Definitions and expressions

• Three lines of defence - "This is a system which relies on there being an opportunity at three complementary and independent levels to identify and correct any control failures". 
• Second line of defence - "Second line functions should support and challenge the management of risks firm-wide, by expressing views within a firm on the appropriateness of the level of risks being run"
• The above is supplemented by the following: "Responsibility for risk should not be delegated to risk management and control functions" - amen brother!
• Third line of defence - "Internal Audit should provide independent assurance over firms' internal controls, risk management and governance"
• Risk Appetite - "A firm's stated risk appetite is an important factor in determining whether a firm's risk and control framework is commensurate with [the] nature of its business, and should be both integral to a firm's strategy and at the heart of its risk management system" - not far off a direct quote from last year's Approach Paper on Banking Supervision (p22), though it has moved from "foundation" to "heart" in this Final Notice. I know what I prefer to build on!
• "Clearly-defined strategy" - they list "well-defined objectives, responsibilities and milestones" as expected
• Policies - "The establishment of appropriate policies [and procedures] governing the conduct of a firm's activities is an essential component in the exercise of appropriate organisation and control of a firm's business"
• "Good risk management culture" (p7) - interestingly an expression most bodies have avoided using, preferring "sound" to "good". They later go on to talk of culture more generically in terms of "right" and "inappropriate" (p33).

Observations

• Interestingly, Co-op Bank never refer to operating "3LOD" until their 2012 Annual Report (p56 for the boilerplate and clearly untrue definitions), so any deficiencies in the model before that year might be for a good reason!
• First line management oversight was seen as "inadequate" and "inappropriate" (p12)
• Their second line managers "...repeatedly voiced concerns" about headcount (p29), which weren't addressed until the back end of the period under scrutiny. Hard to think post-2007 it would be hard to justify reinforcing that area of the business, which perhaps says a lot about the entity's culture. 
• Second line not monitoring adherence to policies (p29) - quite hard to conceive of nobody in the second line doing this!
• A clear distinction made more than once between "Risk Management Framework Policies" and "adequate policies and procedures" relating to operational matters (p5)
• Some of the failure to follow 'internal policies' seems to have been sponsored by the acquisition of the Britannia book - perhaps a natural by-product of M&A activity, where the cultures and modus operandi clash (p21)
• Second line criticised for not providing proper "independent challenge" - happy to see this, given the focus tends to be on second line oversight, which always feels like a bit of a jib-job.
• Third line giving the business credit for proposed remedial action in its audit reports (p31) - even taking this into account, they were rolling over around 30% of recommended actions in their reports as "overdue"!
• Head of Internal Audit reported to the Head of Risk
• An implication that one may be permitted shortcomings in one's internal control framework, providing one's culture is "appropriate" (p5). 
• An interesting slant on reputational risk emerges from one of the accounting interpretations used, specifically that while assuming a particular accounting treatment (on the Leek notes in this case) which benefits the entity at the expense of counterparty might benefit the immediate balance sheet, the long-term effect on being able to raise new capital must be considered (p16)
• External Auditors using a 1-to-7 scale to assess how punitive/liberal the accounting treatments used by clients are. These assessments have bitten this particular client on the bum, given the PRA quote them in the document in the context of whether they align with a "cautious" risk taker!

Open ended questions

• Is "cautious" a realistic appetite for risk at Entity level? More importantly, if one has a "cautious" risk appetite, is one obliged to manage its capital "cautiously"?
• Management information was criticised for not being "sufficiently forward looking" - should it be (as opposed to mostly summarising positions at a point in time)?
• Is the PRA allocating resources to firms based on their Risk Appetite Statements (p13)?
• Is it possible for non-Accounting experts working in the second line to identify just how many ropey interpretations of UK GAAP/IFRS are being applied to a balance sheet? Is it plausible to leave such work to external audit firms who couldn't have a more vested interest in the grey areas of such legislation? The artificial boosting of the balance sheet listed in this notice would be subtle enough to trick an accountant or two I'd bet!
• Can quant risks be effectively managed in a separate team from the qualitative world? Appreciating there is a shockingly blurry line in Co-op Bank's approach (p29), it certainly feels like Solvency II pressures might lead to similar pressures on the staffing front, particularly for modellers and small/medium sized firms where staff may wear more than one hat.

PWC's Risks in Review - White Paper, Black Sabbath...

A quick dive into the wider world of ERM, courtesy of one of our Big 4 friends, ambiguously titled Risks in Review.  PwC's document (short sign-up required) is US-centric and multi-industry, so for the Solvency II crowd you might need to sift for the goodies (a good illustration of which side of the Atlantic it leans towards is that CFO.com reported on its highlights), but for anyone in the ERM space, there should be something for you here.

A bizarre stat is laid out at the beginning in that 73% of the 1,200+ senior executive[s] and Board members respondents to the survey agreed that "risks to their companies are increasing". Whether this be in reference to the number of risks faced, increases in the likelihood/severity of one's existing risk universe, or their perceptions on emerging risks, it certainly suggests that exogenous and endogenous concerns have not abated in the minds of corporate leaders. However, given the risk immaturity within firms that the rest of the document serves to highlight, the lack of definition is rather unhelpful.

Appetite - For Risk or Bats?

As the survey covers multiple industries, it has the more generic risk classifications in mind (i.e all major quantitative risk balled up into "Financial Risk"), which will no doubt gnaw at anyone on the financial services side, but at the same time, it's not all about you!

The pat on the back for those surveyed is the sobriquet of "true risk management leaders", handed out to 12% of respondents. It frankly doesn't feel like a valid aspiration for an entity, more that being a "risk management leader" would be an implicit part of the make up of any firm which successfully delivers on its strategic objectives.

That aside, the Leaders (of which financial services companies "...represent a sizeable portion" of!) are congratulated for;

• Aligning RM Programs with their businesses.
• Communicating Risk Appetite and Risk Tolerance through the business - nothing on hard risk limits in the paper though
• Being "able to take greater business risks" - I don't necessarily make the link between being "good" at risk management equating to taking greater risks, unless that is part of the business strategy one has aligned the RM Program with.
• Take aggregated views of risk over multiple areas
• Using techniques such as emerging risk identification/forecasting, scenario planning and stress testing

Laggards on the other hand

• Have no formal Risk Appetite Framework (only 38% of respondents do)
• Don't integrate Risk Management Strategy with business strategy (only 31% do)

They also hook the leadership qualities of risk management to some quantitative "value of good risk management" work on p5 (a topic which Towers Watson recently tiptoed around due to a lack of quant), namely that their profit margins and margin growth will outstrip peers. The growth of profit margins might be a bum steer, as the macroeconomic environment is perhaps less kind to industries other than financial services, who of course would have seen margins peak comparably faster over recent years due to the size of the trough in 2006/08!

As ever, the lexicon used in papers such as this takes a dip in the lake of dubiosity, for example:

• That companies should "...treat risk management strategically" - as opposed to what, "operationally"? This kind of expression suggests that risk is not already considered in strategy, which feels unfair and unrealistic, even on the immature firms surveyed. That there isn't a functional ERM Framework to enhance that work does not mean it isn't done at all.
• Risk Appetite Framework should have "buy-in" from senior management and the Board. Why "buy-in"? They should be deeply involved in the construction of an RAF, and their successes or failures as management should be inextricably linked to operating in line with it, not asked to nod in approval at the next Board/EXCO
• "Having a clearly defined risk appetite framework allows companies to quickly assess strategic decisions in the context of risk" - that of course was not a given...
• They also follow the tactic used in the Towers Watson paper in referring to risk management "programs" as opposed to "systems" or "frameworks- again, I'm not trying to labour the sematics of it, but a Programme for me has an end, and the work of a risk management function simply does not. This is perhaps just a psychological angle being worked here to drill into prospective clients that Programs can be boosted with a burst of external advice, but I find it increasingly disagreeable, particularly given the risk management leadership traits highlighted in this document, which most certainly do not lend themselves to the workings of a transient Programme.

Other stand out points would include

• Alignment of RM Programmes against each business function (p9) - horrible result for Sales & Marketing, even for Leaders, and suggests it is an area for us all to redouble our efforts
• Similar to Towers, talk of firms "drowning in data" - cannot fathom this for the life of me, but perhaps that's because I can use pivot tables and SQL server!
• GE Capital's approach to administering Risk Appetite (p16) - very clean, and in a manner which the CRO Forum would appreciate.
• Finally, a really nice section on p19 which shows the discrepancies between executives and risk professionals regarding their own firms' prospects. The Fannie Mae CRO suggests that Risk Management staff are "paraniods by profession" which given his employer's recent history, doesn't mean people aren't out for you!

Towers Watson's Global ERM Survey - Knowing ERM, Knowing You...

A couple of treats from two of the powerhouses of the 'writing things down' industry on the practical use of ERM to drive decision making, rather than simply accompany it.

Towers Watson are targeting the Solvency II audience (at least on this side of the Atlantic) with a timely release of the results of their 8th Biennial Global ERM Survey. I say the results, as there is no sign of the full survey itself - any closer to their chest, it would be an areola's backpack...

As ever, these kinds of publications oscillate between flannel and insight, so while I cover those below, feel free to read the infographic and call it quits!

General observations from the main press release include;

• Three-quarters of (the almost 400) respondents say they are viewed as "important strategic partners" by the Board and Executive - I'm less inclined to see that as a mark of superiority, given that risk functions in some firms won't have the ambition or aptitude to achieve that status
• Implication that some respondents do not have a risk appetite framework in place - very worrying, unless this is just bad wording.
• Some firms said to be only "...using ERM for regulatory compliance". It may depend on jurisdiction, but I'm not inclined to agree that is even possible.
• The "ultimate vision" for a firm's ERM capabilities is referred to, which is a brow furrer, even conceptually. TW seem to bundle up risk culture, risk monitoring and risk tolerance into the "Vision" bucket, in case that term takes your fancy.
• The expression "very strategic approach" appears in print for the first time!

Getting Value from ERM?
- "Kiss my Face"

From the more elaborate Q&A document, we find the main granular material which TW were prepared to publish. Fortunately for readers this side of the Atlantic, the EMEA Director Mike Wilkinson holds sway over much of that conversation, including his tale of the firm who recently had an ERM/Business Strategy-inspired "Aha" moment.

That session contains a fair bit of contention, such as;

• Asking the questions "What's the purpose of risk management" or indeed the "purpose of your ERM Program" in the Q&A - if these had been directed to the respondents themselves, it would have contextualised a number of the seemingly negative responses i.e. If the purpose of your ERM Program is "don't get shut down", you are probably less bothered about being a "strategic partner"!
• That the business should "...challenge the risk group to create reports that help them make decisions" - Excel Jockey is hardly the work of a strategic partner...
• In a similar vein, that insurers are "drowning in data, drowning in metrics" - hardly a new phenomenon, and doesn't give any credit to the critical faculties of employees to filter what they do have.
• "...many [internal capital] models have matured" - a sharp intake of breath can be heard down at Moorgate!
• That "...an ERM Program can't properly be assessed until it has been in place for a while" - pretty sure the S&P crowd wouldn't hold off assessing you while you "embed"

Mike in particular does manage to keep a good focus throughout the Q&A on maximising trade-offs between risk and return being the big differentiator between Risk functions who are capable of influencing strategic decision making, and those who are perhaps more likely to be tabling red-amber-green reports tracking the outcomes of decisions which have already been made.

Other strong points include;

• In the context of Risk Tolerance, how to cater for the discretion required by an insurer's asset managers in handling investment portfolios.
• Touches on a couple of pieces which stood out in the CRO Forum's Risk Appetite publication last month, namely around the increasing number of measures being used to run businesses other than capital, allowance of movement within risk tolerance levels, and whether firms have effectively articulated their organisation-wide Risk Appetite and Risk Tolerance limits down into its subsidiaries/departments.

One aspect which gnawed at me throughout this reading is the constant referrals to "ERM Programs" - I don't think I am bathing in semantics to suggest that Programs normally start and end, whilst ERM would surely constitute a Framework. You might choose to redecorate the Framework periodically with a Program (Solvency II a prime example), but you wouldn't expect a Program to "mature" or "evolve", you expect it to conclude!

Nitpicking?

Love RAFs? CRO Forum's Risk Appetite survey

The CRO Forum have recently published the results of their 2014 survey on Risk Appetite development in insurance entities. It is perhaps the oldest drum in Risk Management Town, but one we are always happy to hear the beat of, and while we shouldn't expect a forum with such luminary members to deliver any shocking results, a careful sift through the carcass is always a smart idea.

The Cure - to tolerance breaches?

The final presenter at the PRA's recent NED briefing noted that Risk Appetite is "no longer an aspiration", a comment I felt was further behind the times than Nana wearing Juicy Couture. That said, on page 8 it suggests that less than a quarter of firms are "very satisfied" with their RAF maturity, and over a third feel they have "a lot of work to do", so perhaps he hit the nail half on the head...

This document should clarify whether that caution is justified, and with 48 responses from the top table, it should be a reliable benchmarking tool. Despite starting like a GCSE essay ("the topic of Risk Appetite has exploded"?), it contains some useful, if a little dry, benchmarks, such as;

• Principles for a RAF (p3-4) - hard to argue with
• Main goals - dominated by preserving capital, while only a third are looking to "improve shareholder value" or "optimise capital"
• Main stakeholder list (p5) seems good in breadth and priority
• Almost everyone is using regulatory capital in some way as a Risk Tolerance measure (p9)
• Stress and Scenario testing is being used by 80% to set Risk Tolerance levels, which feels at the right end of expectations
• 60% report quarterly, with most others slightly more or less frequent

It takes a few odd turns, in particular;

• One of the main objectives cited (p4) seem to be centre around boiling down things into a single document. I appreciate that pressure, but surely we feel that a RAF has a more substantial objective that document consolidation?
• "Development of a Risk Appetite Statement is an evolution" (p6) - don't agree at all, it is a task, otherwise it would never get done.
• Coverage of Risk Appetite Statements as "regulatory requirements", in particular under Solvency II. Just because the industry is choosing to discharge its obligations in EIOPA's Guidelines (SoG 15 & 16) by producing a single statement document, it doesn't make a Risk Appetite Statement a requirement.
• Less than half are using a "1-in-x" loss that would breach regulatory capital in their Risk Tolerances - just feels like a very obvious one to use, so suprised by that number

Some of the more practical issues faced by firms are well covered, for example;

• Difficulties for Groups when setting risk appetite. Does the parent/head-office set overall appetite, and the children sub-divide it by business unit/risk category/Both? Do the children set their own appetites and feed them up for aggregation?
• Listing Risk Concentration targets looks awkward across the board (p5). While firms seem to be able to quantify Liquidity and Capital targets in their Risk Appetite Statements, other categories are much less consistently quantified. Market, Credit and Insurance Risk appear to be quantified by less than a third of respondents, preferring to address these in separate policies/guidelines (a Solvency II by-product perhaps?).
• Setting Risk Tolerance levels is highlighted as a "minor" improvement required by over 60% of respondents.
• There is a veritable bombsite of Earnings at Risk metrics in use, which is healthy for the industry I guess (p10).
• What does one do when Risk Tolerance level is breached? Around a third are not OK with limit breaches and demand immediate rectification, while two thirds allow for a "Cure Period" to return the Risk Profile to its required form. A "Cure Period" seems the fairest breach rectification approach to me - after all, I don't care if Monday's blue...

A worthy benchmarking document, so fill those boots.

CRO Forum's Principles on Operational Risk Measurement - "Quant touch this"...

Hammer Time?
Current efforts in Op Risk quantification

Despite practitioners efforts over the last few years, Operational Risk continues to live on starvation rations when it comes to considered quantification. Never treated as an alpha-topic by executives inside insurance institutions, it has been treated with similar indifference by legislators, culminating in the  "totally inadequate" take-a-percentage methodology for calculating Operational Risk capital in the Standard Formula.

Internal Modellers on the whole are not likely to be shaming that technique with their efforts either (basic summary of their problems here, while InsuranceERM cover struggles as a whole with a roundtable here). A paucity of operational risk event (and near miss) data within firms may be good news for ORIC as a vendor, but from a parameter and data uncertainty perspective, it leaves internal model operators and validators in an invidious position, particularly due to the quantum of insurers' capital likely to be involved (10%, give or take?).

It's not that the actuarial world hasn't taken a stab at it before (here), aren't fully aware of the data holes (here), or haven't used the word "Bayesian" in a sentence (here). However an activity which was "in its infancy" in the UK as far back as 2005, is surely now old enough to be working in the mines...

I was therefore happy to see the unprolific-yet-important CRO Forum bring a white paper to the table, Principles of Operational Risk Management and Measurement. It is an update to a 2009 version which takes into account Solvency II demands, as well as developing practice within insurers over the period, the suggestion being that 2009's efforts were a little too Banking Industry-influenced.

While this document might feel at outset like an idiot's guide to "quanting" operational risk (and bearing in mind the number of prospective standard formula applicants - 9 out of 10 in UK - one may be needed soon!), the document touches on a number of noteworthy technical matters, in particular;

• The Definition section doesn't read well, but they have attempted to include outcomes other than monetary loss into the Op Risk definition, which from experience will improve discourse within firms. Are they attempting to squeeze strategic and reputational risks into this box though?
• Nice coverage of Boundary Events, and encouraging firms to consider them in their management of Op Risk.
• Very specific treatment of Risk Tolerance throughout, using it in preference to Risk Appetite. This is because it cannot be avoided, and so tolerance levels should be used to trigger "RAG"-type reporting up the chain. Nice work, and well justified, but I have certainly seen the expression "Zero Appetite" used for Op Risk, so no doubt this is not an industry standard perspective yet! (p5-6)
• No problems with their coverage of tried and tested techniques - "Top Down", RCSA's & Loss Event analysis (p9-10)
• Nice turn of phrase regarding emerging risks on p9 - "...assess the proximity of new risks to the organisation". It may need to include an attempt to quantify to be fully useful for ORSA purposes.
• Concept of residual risk arrives quite late in the day, but isn't omitted. Important, given how much qualitative, or spuriously quantitative, material is being promoted as aiding this measurement work (p10)
• Seem to accept at the bottom of p10 that Internal Modellers must do more than curve fit on internal Op Risk Event data - good news I guess.
• Internal Model validation pressures on current Op Risk quantification practices flagged directly (p16 in particular)
• Guidelines on embedding Op Risk monitoring processes highlight just how much work some practitioners are managing to cover (p11). Quite disheartening for those with smaller budgets.

Ther are a few points to make on section B around quantification:

• Pretty scathing on Standard Formula relevance. (p14)
• Scenario Analysis sold as something of a panacea to cure the ills of incomplete Op Risk Event data sets, but no mention of the biases which seem to permeate the creation of the scenarios, which is sadly a hostage to the invitee list. (p14)
• Expand more on scenario analysis, bringing the "severe but plausible" terminology to the table (p15)

As well as the following generic comments;

• Is risk measurement - "a tool for embedding risk culture in the organisation"? I would say so, particularly in the Op Risk arena, where decision makers will need to be involved at scenario-compilation time.
• That said, they then go on to reference "senior management sign-off" of scenario work, which is somewhat contradictory!
• Overweight in references to "culture" and "tone at the top", like most white papers these days (see the FRC's efforts from the other week). Playing with fire as a profession by shoehorning references to "culture" into everything.
• A couple of horror-show schematics used on pages 7 and 8 - the Forum must know how much time risk professionals lose walking non-experts through things like this. They serve no purpose, and detract from surrounding text.
• Attempt on p9 to solicit business for ORIC?

It was Professor Jagger who accurately prophesised "You can't always get what you Quant" - I'd say the Risk profession concurs, based on these very welcome principles.

FRC on Risk Management and Internal Control disclosure - insurers way ahead?

Muddy Waters
- public disclosure on Risk

The UK's Financial Reporting Council have released guidance on Risk Management, Internal Control and related reporting, just in time to help muddy the waters for UK insurers, who have no doubt finally got their risk, actuarial and compliance functions writing non-conflicting words with Solvency II preparation in mind!

Anyone who has written, peer-reviewed or socially read these sections of public reports (i.e. me, and any other geeks), will know they are normally;

• Boiler-plate, and completely transferrable between industries, regardless of their disparate risk profiles
• Aligned to the Strategy sections with a few anchor words, but otherwise divorced
• Frequently unaligned with the ERM frameworks used internally - i.e. "this is what the City wants to read", not material on our actual risk profile!

Given that this is only guidance, and is further only directly relevant to LSE listed entities, readers may be inclined to take the content with a fistful of salt. There are a number of noteworthy aspects to this publication however which maybe show where the mindset of supervisory-types has got to in the eight or so years since the financial crisis commenced.

 I took the following general points from it;

• Very little for listed insurers to be concerned about, if they have prepared adequately for ORSA and supervisory reporting (SFCR, RSR) - indeed, their reporting teams will be delighted with the amount of content crossover! Check out the (still not finalised) Delegated Acts of Solvency II in order to see why listed Insurers won't need to stretch to meet these.
• Frequent references to "culture", as opposed to "risk culture". Checking the FSB's take on Risk Culture from April of this year, one can appreciate the FRC's desire to gemmy culture into these guidelines, if perhaps not the execution - one fears the "culture" words are likely to become a little weasely.
• Multiple crossovers into ORSA language, in particular re-emphasising the importance of the alignment of risk management with business strategy.
• Good work in section 4, bringing in the "IMMMR" concept from Solvency II, as well as assessment of current and emerging risks, and assessing exogenous and endogenous risks when doing so.
• Recommend that risk assessments are performed at inherent and residual level, and that control effectiveness is also considered when arriving at one's final assessment

On the technical front, the following elements caught my eye

• "Emerging principal risks" used as an expression - not sure if that stands up to scrutiny i.e. if something is emerging, can it be a "principal" anything? How would you measure it to gauge "principality"?
• Reference to "high profile failures in risk management" in recent years, which feels a little finger-pointy - we could deconstruct every corporate failure to one of risk management failure
• "Risk Appetite" put into inverted commas within the guidance, but not in the appendices - can't quite work out the aversion to definition given the FSB's work to date at the very least, but certainly EIOPA have similarly dodged it (p59), and looking at Appendix 1 of the Irish regulator's thought paper on Risk Appetite, one can see why!
• "It is the role of management to implement and take day-to-day responsibility for board policies on risk management and internal control" - really? responsibility for their implementation, sure, but policy content?

Financial Stability Board - Principles for an Effective Risk Appetite

Christmas has come early everyone - the Financial Stability Board have released their Principles for an Effective Risk Appetite Framework today, and I'm greedily ripping in to it before JC's birthday like a spoilt, yet handsome child...

FSB's RAF Principles published- 

send the car back lads...

There has been a reasonable amount of traffic on Risk Appetite this year (here, here and here for a start), after the FSB but announced their consultation earlier in the year, I've been on tenterhooks. This was following of the back of a thematic review on Risk Governance as a whole by the FSB, which they published back in February.

So where do they take this deep dive into Risk Appetite? Other than awkwardly shoehorning in the soup de jour of "SIFIs", they stick to the hard areas which will get every risk practitioners' attention (namely, Risk Appetite Framework, Risk Appetite Statements, Risk Limits and Roles and Responsibilities), though "for clarity and simplicity", they jettison the use of Risk Tolerance. Definitions are supplied on p2-3, which you may find useful as anchor references.

They somehow make room for anodyne flannel in this very short document, for example;

Risk Appetite Frameworks

• Should "facilitate embedding risk appetite into the financial institution’s risk culture" 
• Development and establishment is an "...iterative and evolutionary process that requires ongoing dialogue throughout the financial institution to attain buy-in across the organisation" (groan)

Risk Appetite Statements

• "Risk appetite may not necessarily be expressed in a single document; however, the way it is expressed and the manner in which multiple documents form a “coherent whole” need to be carefully reviewed to ensure that the board obtains a holistic, but compact and easy to absorb, view of the financial institution’s risk appetite"

Risk Limits

• "Having risk limits that are measurable can prevent a financial institution from unknowingly exceeding its risk capacity as market conditions change and be an effective defence against excessive risk-taking" - tell that to Lehmans!

However, the salient points for me were as follows;

Risk Appetite Frameworks

• RAF "...sets the financial institution’s risk profile" - not convinced on that one, but may be semantic issue
• "explicitly defines the boundaries within which management is expected to operate when pursuing the institution’s business strategy"
• Should "be adaptable to changing business and market conditions" to allow for limit increases where appropriate

Risk Appetite Statements

• "[should] address the institution’s material risks under both normal and stressed market and macroeconomic conditions"
• "...should establish quantitative measures of loss or negative outcomes that can be aggregated and disaggregated"
• "...include key background information and assumptions"
• "...include quantitative measures that can be translated into risk limits"
• "...be forward looking and, where applicable, subject to scenario and stress testing"

Risk Limits

• "[should] be set at a level to constrain risk-taking within risk appetite"
• "...should not be strictly based on comparison to peers or default to regulatory limits"
• "[should] not be overly complicated, ambiguous, or subjective"

Roles and Responsibilities

The Board

• ...must establish the institution-wide RAF and approve the risk appetite statement, which is developed in collaboration with the chief executive officer (CEO), chief risk officer (CRO) and chief financial officer (CFO)
• FSB specifically comment that Boards who "receive" or "note" Risk Appetite Statements have a lower understanding of risk appetite (so don't sponsor it!)
• " [should] regularly review and monitor the actual risk profile and risk limits against the agreed levels (e.g. by business line, legal entity, product, risk category), "including qualitative measures of conduct risk"
• " [should] ensure risk management is supported by adequate and robust IT and MIS to 
• enable identification, measurement, assessment and reporting of risk in a timely 
• and accurate manner."

CEO should

• "...be accountable, together with the CRO, CFO, and business lines for the integrity of the RAF"
• "...ensure that the institution-wide risk appetite statement is implemented by senior management"
• "...provide leadership in communicating risk appetite to internal and external stakeholders" 
• "...establish a policy for notifying the board and the supervisor of serious breaches of risk limits and unexpected material risk exposures"

While there are specific sections for the obligations of CRO, CFO, Internal Audit and Business Unit Management, they don't necessarily expand much further than what I consider to be normal functional expectations, so I haven't elaborated on them.

One should certainly therefore expect a much more aggressive approach from supervisors in future off the back of this - combing through strategy and board papers for evidence of Risk Appetite in application, and making sure that Risk Appetite Statements are not just 'rubber stamped', for example.

I certainly don't see much in this for stakeholders. Nothing particularly new is brought to the table here, and if this is the results of peer review and shared experiences, then clearly there is concurrence on how an RAF should be constructed, what a RAS looks like, and who should do what in regard to continuous monitoring.

The skill will be for risk practitioners to convince their CEOs/NEDs that, this is no longer a sidecar activity in the ERM best practice space, but a nascent global minimum standard which will invariably surface in national regulations in the forthcoming moths and years.

Financial Reporting Council - documenting 'principal risks' in Strategic Reports

I had recently spotted that the UK's Financial Reporting Council had issued draft guidance on the compilation of the Strategic Report for listed entities. This segment of a company's Annual Report and Accounts (currently called the 'Business Review') has been a rather ubiquitous and clunky affair regardless of industry, delivering little information to prospective and existing shareholders about how the company's risk profile, appetite, preferences etc. are catered for when executing its strategy.

Strategic reporting for UK companies 
- elimination of flannel?

Insurers have been prominent in efforts to improve this, though driven more by the need to pacify the FSA/PRA than by Parliament - see "risk appetite" break out from its box in  Aviva's AR&A between 2007 and 2012 for example - but the fact that a substantial piece of statutory reporting generally in the hands of executive management can potentially stray from the lexicon and structure of their increasingly professionalised Control Functions (and for banks and insurers, potentially their Internal Models), is clearly one that warrants some focus.

The Strategic Report will be compulsory content for Annual Reports and Accounts from October (Companies Act 2006 414C). The FRC's (non-mandatory) guidance regarding the incorporation of risk-related material into this section is to address the requirement on p2 that the Strategic Report;

...should include a description of the principal risks and uncertainties facing the company

The FRC's specific definition of Principal Risk is found on p35 of the draft guidance as;

A risk or combination of risks that can seriously affect the performance, future prospects or reputation of the entity. These should include those risks that affect the viability of an entity.

The draft guidance (p23) aims to tack on a few definitional aspects of how "risks and uncertainties" are reported in the context of strategy, most pointedly;

• [The risks] should be limited to those considered by the entity’s management to be the most important to the future development, performance or position of the entity. They will generally be matters that the directors regularly monitor and discuss because of their likelihood, the magnitude of their potential effect on the entity, or a combination of the two
• Principal risks or uncertainties with potential effects of such a magnitude that they may threaten the entity’s viability (ie its solvency and/or liquidity) should be explained fully and given due prominence
• Directors should consider the full range of business risks including commercial, operational and financial risks
• The descriptions...should be 
  sufficiently specific that a shareholder can understand why they are important to the 
  entity. This might include a description of the likelihood of the risk, an indication of when 
  the risk might be most relevant to the entity and its possible effects. Significant changes...

  such as a change in likelihood or possible effect, or the inclusion of new 

  risks, should be highlighted and explained. An explanation of how the principal risks and 
  uncertainties are managed or mitigated should also be included.
• 
  

  Where the risk or uncertainty is more generic, the description should make 

  clear how it might affect the entity specifically.

Prudential provide a good example here (from p72) of how this is currently done by an insurer - the fact that it is buried in 75 pages of 'Business Review' underlines why the streamlining of this work has become of statutory interest!

Interestingly, the FRC note that definition for "principal risks" has been developed/derived from previous FRC work, supplemented by work from the Sharman Inquiry - all of that therefore feels well divorced from anything produced by the IRM/Actuarial Profession/EIOPA around risk categorisation, and leads to the same bridging work I have been involved in previously; namely, reconciling how one manages and monitors risk within the business against what one reports externally. Might we have expected to see some kind of compulsory categorisation of "principal risks" in here that favours the financial services industry who arguably carry the largest set? 

Much of the other compulsory material in the Strategic Report (with exemptions) touches on other topical or sensitive matters such as;

• Inclusion of key performance indicators in the report ("...where possible, they should be accepted and widely used")
• Information on environmental matters, staff and social/community/human rights issues
• Information on gender splits at Board, Senior Management and All-company level

I may throw some feedback in to the FRC on this paper- comments welcome until late November. Externally, the main change for insurers will be trimming down some of the fluff and flannel already produced in the space. Internally, aligning the concept of "principal risks" with existing ERM programme/Internal Model lexicon may be a bigger job for anyone operating on a shoestring.

Towers Watson - 'Risk Appetite revisited' (did we ever leave it?)

I have been doing a little work on Risk Appetite in the background recently, so was intrigued to have a read through this recent release by Towers Watson on the subject, seemingly targeted at North American and UK markets, but relevant to any practitioner in this space. Somehow I wasn't put off by p6 when, in response to the hypothetical question 'What is Risk Appetite', they responded with, "...we do not want to focus too much on the issue..."!

Appetite - second helpings?

I had blogged earlier this year on Risk Appetite, covering the expectations of EIOPA on the matter (which are few), as well as the more pokey/proddy stakeholders like the PRA/Central Bank of Ireland/S&P (which are several!), so the backdrop of risk appetite's practical significance to insurers doesn't need to be repeated here, more how consultants and practitioners are improving their game on the ground. Worth noting here that a few of the other consultancies have proffered their two cents on the matter over the last year or so (here, here, and here).

While interest in 'risk appetite' is currently piqued at governmental level thanks to the forensic examination of the banking industry's failings (multiple references in Parliamentary Commission evidence here and here for example), the driver of activity in the UK and Ireland is predominantly from the regulatory compliance perspective rather than expectations of bespoke, strategy-driving activity. In addition, we now see the emergence of Internal Audit as a party with a vested interest in the matter, which has the potential to draw the subject even more to a tidy, but ultimately superfluous documentation exercise.

With that in mind, Towers note that this paper is focused on "...enhancing risk appetite by improving its articulation, via clearer linkages to mission and strategy", and a rather derisive tone is therefore applied throughout regarding the familiar quantification methods preferred by regulators to monitor likelihood of insolvency in the next 12 months, giving equal billing to non-monetary capital and qualitative measurements. The paper also crosses some familiar ground, such as a lack of consistent terminology, which it tries to address (below).

Oddly, the document does not reference the FSB's thematic review of risk governance earlier this year, which will surely drive efforts in this space in the medium term, if only due to the paucity of certainty on the subject. That the FSB believe that regulators have "more work to do" is striking, and while they also bemoan the lack of common terminology, they don't let that prevent them from offering definitions of their own, as well as listing their "Key features" of a Risk Appetite Framework.

More obvious statements

• "..clearer linkages are needed to mission and strategy for risk appetite to be effective"
• "risk appetites must include boundary constraints"
• "We suggested that greater clarity around the definition of risk is needed..."

Definitions

• Risk - "In this context, risk should be defined in terms of those events and circumstances that may result in an insurer failing to deliver on its mission."
• Risk appetite - "...the manner in which a company expresses an identified set of risk-trading opportunities, and sets boundaries on its risk-trading among those opportunities, aligned with successfully delivering on its mission."
• Risk strategy - "The company’s risk strategy articulates how risk fits with the mission".
• Risk tolerance - "Risk tolerances are a quantitative extension of the risk strategy...risk tolerances must be measurable...[and] place quantitative boundaries on the company’s strategy"
• Risk limits - "Risk limits are more granular tolerance levels expressed for specific risk sources, business units, and/or products that are used to implement the risk tolerances."
• Risk appetite statement - "...risk appetite statements should be taken as the combination of risk strategy tolerances and preferences, bringing together qualitative and quantitative enterprise perspectives on risk as both opportunity and threat."
• Mission - "mission is the insurer’s unique multi-period and multi-stakeholder value creation proposition."

Technical suggestions

• They promote four facets of risk assessment: size, likelihood, impact and significance.
• For those working on statement content, they recommend "...since published mission statements can be fairly terse, the risk appetite may need to look beyond the explicit elements of the mission and consider elements that are implicit." Instinctively that feels unfair, but I guess the world of implicity is one for the second line to inhabit, while the first line concentrate on value-adding.
• Concept of adaptive buffers sits nicely with me - the most visceral ones being economic capital and reinsurance/hedging/liquidity facilities, but TW attempt to expand that over qualitative areas of the risk appetite statement
• Risk preference ranking of 0-4 depicted at the back is a handy schematic

Sore points

• "Some take the view that risk appetite can be expressed as a single metric, or perhaps a small set of metrics, that capture the organisation’s willingness and ability to bear risk." - that 'some' would include the FSB, COSO, the Central Bank of Ireland and the IRM, so I wouldn't be too sniffy at efforts to-date
• "Much of the work to-date on risk appetite statements has been driven by solvency supervision requirements, many statements tend to focus primarily on potential losses of capital"- a natural and by no means unwelcome by-product of having regulators in the box-seat, as opposed to stakeholders combining their efforts to establish compulsory risk appetite statement content?
• "While most insurers have, by now, developed risk appetite policy statements and discussed them with their boards, many have expressed dissatisfaction with the exercise" - that feels a rather loose statement, and if true says more about the personnel charged with performing the work.

I'll take a look at the diversity of definition in the risk appetite space across different bodies in a separate post - for now, just enjoy this tidy piece of work for what it is.

Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors - final guidance on Effective Internal Audit for financial services

The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors have followed up on their consultation earlier this year on Effective Internal Audit in the Financial Sector with this final set of recommendations.

Doesn't appear to have been any seismic changes as a result of the consultation, though the "need for proportionality" has been recognised, and clarification has been added that the content itself has not been mandated by the profession as best practice.

Interestingly, huge emphasis has been put on clarifying the primary role of Internal Audit as being the "protection" of a firms's assets, reputation and sustainability - does the profession feel well resourced and equipped to handle reputational defence? - while a few other elements sprung out at me;

• A focus remains on IA challenging the "tone at the top", as if the expression now carries so much weight and definition that professional guidance can be hung from it.
• "Risk Appetite" is again not defined, however IA are on the hook for assessing that it has been established and reviewed by senior management
• Emphatically declares that "...the assurance map cannot be carved up between the Risk, Compliance and Internal Audit functions", stressing that IA will be expected to include the challenge of the work of other control functions in their audit plans
• Built in some leeway around their earlier suggestion of compulsory attendance of IA function heads at Executive Committee meetings (ostensibly in order to understand strategy) - for insurers, one could anticipate that the advent of ORSA may take care of that knowledge gap 

Certainly the PRA/FCA have been fast to come out with support for the final version, so I guess all control functions had better make their peace with the content and prepare appropriately.

Risk Appetite white paper from Oliver Wyman - hold the onions...

A white paper on Risk Appetite from Oliver Wyman caught my eye recently whilst fishing for supporting materials for my own take on the matter. I have covered on this blog a range of opinion

Risk Appetite - need to 'ketchup' with
latest benchmarks?

pieces on Risk Appetite from the professional institutes to the consultancies to the regulators perspectives, and so far they never seem to be on the same page at the same time.

From the Solvency II perspective, we know that (as it stands) Risk Appetite only exists in written word in Level 3 System of Governance and ORSA guidance, namely;

• That the AMSB is "ultimately responsible" for setting it (Sys Gov G15)
• That EIOPA did not wish to distinguish between "risk appetite" and "risk tolerance", rather let national regulators and the industry scrap out any divergence in term usage themselves (Sys Gov p30-38!)
• On that basis, "Risk Appetite" doesn't even feature in the L3 ORSA Guidance, though "risk tolerance limits" do (ORSA G7 and G11), perhaps indicating what terminology EIOPA prefer.

From the national regulatory perspective, the PRA have ingrained its importance as the "foundation of [an insurer's] risk management framework" in its new approach paper (section 110), whilst the Central Bank of Ireland have not only built Risk Appetite into the supervisory structure, but even had time remonstrate with the industry for its lack of progress around Risk Appetite statements!

The ratings agencies expectations on Risk Appetite also come into play, with S&P expecting its "clear communication" and "linking to risk limits" as part of its ERM assessment programme (p5, and more extensively, p9). They do however have the courage to define their terms with respect to appetite, tolerance and preference in the appendix. 

Appreciating therefore the Oliver Wyman paper is catering outside of the financial services sector, it still contains a host of rather inane platitudes such as;

Risk Appetite Framework

"...bringing discipline to major strategy decisions" - as opposed to the Chief Exec and Chair? 

"...essential for firms considering an ambitious growth strategy" - as opposed to all firms?

"...developing a robust risk appetite framework does not take an inordinate amount of time and effort" - might want to tell that to the rest of the invoice-generating consultancy world!

Risk Appetite Statement

"...more than just a set of benchmarks" - at what point has a RAS ever been that?

"...setting the 'tone at the top' about the relationship between risk and return" - "tone" as opposed to "rules"? 

It also contains a number of apocryphal tales and irritants, such as

• Senior management "often" fail to take risk appetite into account - probably true even in the financial services world pre-2007 (indeed it was a major feature of the Lehman's autopsy!), but one would think less so now.
• "Few" companies able to unlock benefits of a risk appetite framework - that feels a bit light, though I don't doubt some firms may struggle depending on their corporate structure and industry.
• Frequently interchanging between "Framework" and "Statement" throughout, in the same way as many ORSA-related materials do so for "Process" and "Report".

It ultimately recommends that a Risk Appetite Framework should contain the following characteristics;

1. Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Appetite Statement
2. Ensure the statement content is "useful" for all internal stakeholders (Board, Senior Management, Financial analysis teams and business unit leaders"
3. Connect the statement to the planning, review and decision making processes and forums

There are also a number of positive elements within the document, which I would certainly advocate, such as;

• Size Limit - they recommend no more than 4 pages for a Risk Appetite Statement, and one could probably get away with less
• Concepts of Ability (what one can technically afford) and Willingness (to tolerate uncertainty)...
• ...applied as appropriate to a set of qualitative and quantitative themes which are pretty much ready off the shelf (p3)
• Ensuring the metrics used for monitoring are company-specific - very easy to replicate what one has seen in previous firms, but these will inevitably not make the cut in decision making processes, thus defeating the point.

I'll be doing more on this topic in the near future, but for now this material may at least be of use to you for benchmarking purposes.

Solvency II "Where are we now" - summaries from Milliman and PwC

Some useful "where are we now" materials have emerged over the last couple of weeks which you may find helpful, if only to validate your own interpretations of the current state of play:

PwC Ireland preparing for solvency II

Predominantly covers summaries of EIOPA's preparatory guidance, with some nice touches around;

• Differences between Irish Corporate Governance code and L3 system of governance demands (p15)
• Insisting that "an automated solution is required" for the reporting to NCAs, no doubt in the hope of drumming up some work out of such projects now that Pillar 2 work is largely done (p27)
• Comprehensive Use Test schematic (p39)
• General problems encountered meeting data requirements (p47)

In addition, PwC appear to be facilitating the set-up of a CRO Network over in Ireland, which will allow "all the different professional skills that feed into risk management" a place to swap Solvency II risk function-related war stories. First meeting at the end of the summer, can't wait to hear the outcomes.

Milliman - Solvency II Where are we now?

This very detailed slide package was released last week, and like the item above, covers all of the timeline-related activity around EIOPAs L3 work. It goes into updating readers on the latest position on;

• Economic Balance Sheet - noting similarities and differences in IFRS Phase II/Solvency II approaches to valuation, and a large amount of detail around technical provisions
• Data Management - retreads some of the FSA's findings from last year
• SCR - Covers latest standard formula position, as well as partial internal models and generic IMAP issues (again, retreading FSA letter content from last year). Particularly nice IM schematic on slide 21
• System of Governance - Basics on general requirements, function requirements and risk categories (which they have as 'risk management areas'). ORSA piece is fairly generic, but the schematic on Risk Appetite Frameworks (p35) is quite handy.
• Supervisory review - covers circumstances around capital add-ons and how they see the PRA identifying and assessing such instances.
• Supervisory disclosure - SFCR, RSR and QRT content and timetables for submission. Particularly useful to have this summarised, bearing in mind EIOPA's expectations for the interim period are for a subset of the full QRT suite previously published
• Insurance Groups and Equivalence are also covered at the end

Plenty of substance between the two (around 100 slides), so if you have an hour to kill, sers toi tout seul!

UK's "new" Prudential Regulatory Authority - Approach to Insurance Supervision

So a magical thing happened over the weekend: a venerable institution disappeared on Friday, only to come back reborn on Monday...

...that's right, the FSA is no more, being replaced by two more focused entities in the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FSA). This is part of the UK-specific fallout from the financial crisis, where a perceived lack of focus from the former tripartite system which housed the FSA allowed for both systemic risk (Northern Rock, RBS) and conduct risks (PPI, Interest Rate swaps) to emerge largely unchecked.

Rather excitingly, this means a new website with some natty logos from the Bank of England (which

PRA - emperor's new clothes
or Solvency II aperatif?

has rehoused the PRA side of the FSA), as well as a statement on the new supervisory approach that the PRA will be taking.

For anyone in the ERM/Solvency II/Corporate Governance space, this gives us a chance to pick up on the kind of regulatory interrogation one might expect when writing/upgrading system of governance-related materials in preparation for both full Solvency II implementation in 20??, as well as how they are accommodating EIOPA's interim measures from 2014.

Remembering that the PRA's two statutory objectives are to promote safety and soundness of the firms it regulates, as well as specifically providing appropriate protection to insurance policyholders, I thought it wise to make some notes on how they have catered for Solvency II and deference (when due) to EIOPA, as well as the general content around expectations of governance systems. I found the following worthy of note;

Control function-specific

Section 82 - "[PRA] wants to be satisfies in particular that designated risk management and control functions carry real weight within insurers"

Section 117 - Should have separate risk management and individual control functions in place (dependent on nature scale and complexity etc)

Section 118 - the PRA "expects these functions to be independent of an insurer's revenue generating functions"

Section 120 - expectation of an "operationally independent Actuarial function", which the PRA consider to be "integral to the effective implementation of a firm's risk management framework"

Section 182 - "Actuaries can play an important part in supporting prudential supervision"

Section 119 - an effective Risk function on the other hand merely "ensures that material risk issues receive sufficient attention from the insurer's senior management and Board" - just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean the Risk profession isn't being made something of a gooseberry here, particularly as the FSA/Actuarial profession love-in started some time ago!

On Risk Appetite

Section 110 - a firm's risk appetite "[is] to be integral to its strategy, and the foundation of its risk management framework"

Remuneration

Section 84 - "remuneration and incentive schemes should reward careful and prudent management" - just like Prudential's and Standard Life's did this week!

Section 194 - Hint at potentially restricting pay in firms if intervention is warranted

Stress/Reverse Stress Testing

Section 109 - the AMSB must have "...an explicit understanding of the circumstances in which their firm might fail"

Section 145 - with regards to Reverse Stress Testing, "...management should consider the reliability of the output of the internal model compared with the results of these tests"

Section 106 - "competent, and where appropriate, independent control functions" should oversee risk management and internal control frameworks

Internal Models

Section 116 - On Internal Models, the AMSB should understand;

• extent of reliance on models for managing risk;
• limitations of their structure and complexity;
• Data used;
• key underpinning assumptions

Section 140 - "PRA expects internal models to be appropriately prudent"

Section 144 - firms may not choose the lowest capital requirement to determine whether or not to model internally

Regulatory Capital

Section 135 - for capital adequacy, firms "...should not rely on regulatory minima", and also "...should not rely on aggressive interpretations of actuarial or accounting standards"

Proportionality

Sections 212-215 - touches on treatment of "low impact" firms - is this effectively where aggressive approaches to proportionality interpretation should be expected (combined control functions, limited documentation, passive acceptance of Standard Formula etc)?

p43 - table covering the allocation of supervisory staff - 10 staff to 1 firm for the 25 largest insurers, versus approaching 10 firms to 1 supervisor at the small end.

Solvency II-specific references

• In the PRA's view "[Solvency II technical detail should] leave scope for supervisors of individual insurers to make informed judgements around risks posed"
• Confirms that elements of the Directive such as Prudent Person Principle, ORSA, Control Function requirements and Pillar 1 are all aligned with the new Threshold Conditions
• Model approval will be dependent on "adequate" risk identification, measurement, management, monitoring and reporting throughout the modelling process
• Will impose capital add-ons when necessary "to ensure insurers meet the required standards"

EIOPA Preparatory Guidance - ORSA (or 'forward looking assessment of risks')

Forward-looking assessment of the undertakings own risks (based on ORSA principles) (plus explanatory text)

The ORSA preparatory guidelines* are not a massive burden for anyone busy rolling eggs down hills at the moment, coming in at 34 pages containing 25 guidelines, as well as 29 pages of explanatory text. In this instance, it is probably disappointing to any underprepared supervisors and insurers in that they may have preferred more!

More pointedly, the materials add little to what was already in existence from EIOPA in July 2012, and certainly will required little in the way of adaption in the UK's instance, who are already in a similar headspace and have been advising accordingly.

Of course the world and her husband have piped up with their opinion on what ORSA should cover and how it should be administered and documented (this post has a decent sweep at capturing most of them), so opinion on this matter is something we are not short on.

For me the headline points are:

• ORSAs (well, 'overall solvency needs assessments', but let's be serious!) expected from 2014
• Internal Models should be used by anyone in pre-application
• Likely that most standard formula firms will have to qualitatively assess deviations between SF and their own Risk Profile at this time
• Expectation of an internal ORSA report and a ORSA supervisory report
• Records of the assessment expected to be documented and kept which must be "appropriate" - no prescription of what that means
• ORSAs to be performed at least annually

The following points are either new, or worthy of reiteration for anyone whose preparations on this front are less than certain - for ease of reference I have used 'ORSA' where EIOPA use 'forward looking assessment of risk', and as with the other preparatory guidance papers I have looked at, I will assume there will be blanket application as written, with no dissent from industry or NCAs:

Guideline 3

• Overall Solvency Needs assessments will be expected from 2014 (i.e compliance with Article 45.1)
• Minimum of 80% of the market must also assess whether they would comply with the Articles 45 (b) and (c) from 2014 - regardless of any Pillar 1 uncertainty.
• Internal Models expected to be used in ORSAs if a company is in model approval pre-application
• IF the standard formula is 'provided' by 2014, expectation that SF firms will assess deviation between the SF assumptions and their own Risk Profile - this excludes anyone outside of the magic 80% catchment figure mentioned above.

Guideline 6 - Documentation generated by ORSAs must include:

• An ORSA Policy
• An ORSA Record
• An Internal ORSA Report
• AN ORSA Supervisory Report

Guideline 7 - The ORSA Policy must include

• Description of component ORSA processes and procedures
• Consideration of the linkages between Risk Profile, Risk Tolerances and Overall Solvency Needs (OSN)

As well as information on

• frequency on stress tests, scenario analyses and reverse stress tests; 
• data quality standards; and 
• the frequency of the assessment, justified in relation to Risk Profile, volatility of OSN relative to capital position, timing (from calendar perspective I guess) and circumstances for ad-hoc assessments

Guideline 8 - ORSA Record

• Firms expected to "appropriately evidence" the assessment - no prescription as to what that means (logs, working papers, meeting minutes, e-mails)

Guideline 9 - Internal ORSA Report

• AMSB must communicate results to "all relevant staff" post-approval, which includes the ORSA results and conclusions

Guideline 10 - ORSA Supervisory Report

• 2 weeks after concluding ORSA, ORSA supervisory report must be submitted, which must include;
• Quantitative and qualitative results, and conclusions drawn
• Methods and main assumptions
• Comparison between Own Funds, SCR and OSN

Guideline 11

• Must quantitatively estimate the impact of different valuation bases (if used) when assessing OSN

Guideline 12

• OSN must be quantified, supplemented by a qualitative description of all material risks
• Expectation that these items are all stress/scenario tested

Guideline 17 - ORSA output to be used at least for;

• Capital Management
• Business Planning
• Product Development

Guideline 18

• ORSA to be performed at least annually

* So let's end with something fundamental, EIOPA - it is NOT useful to replace 'ORSA', as an acronym or indeed in full, with the expression "Forward-looking assessment of risk (based on ORSA principles)" 5 years down the road - I'm sure there is a rationale, just as sure as I am not going to like it (even the GCAE agree with me, going with 'ORSA-like')!

EIOPA Preparatory Guidelines - System of Governance

Consultation on System of Governance preparatory guidance (plus explanatory text)

For a topic which has felt like a given for a number of years (certainly in UK and Ireland where we already ask a lot in this area), the System of Governance preparatory guidance is still 40 pages, comprising of 57 guidelines, accompanied by 60 pages of explanatory text.

A couple of things immediately grabbed at me when going through the guidance (again anticipating a conservative approach of the supervisors rolling over and applying all content as is)

• That the Risk Management Policy (regardless of how one structures the component elements) is expected to contain procedure-level information about the management of each major risk category - this sounds hopelessly disproportionate, and almost impossible for supervisors to reasonably get through;
• That it is "expected" that large or complex firms separate their four key control functions, and that others at the small/medium end may ultimately find it easier to do so than consider the range of controls/maintenance of independence required to have combined functions;
• That an expectation that insurers' systems of governance require regular independent review, with the AMSB only retaining the ability to choose the performer;
• That insurers will be expected to formally identify/analyse/report on Operational Risk Events
• That EIOPA bottled out of defining Risk Appetite and Risk Tolerance, leaving national supervisors and insurers to fight it out amongst themselves.

Ultimately, the document reads like a checklist which practitioners or full-timers can run through against the suite of documentation no doubt already in existence which, if based on CEIOPS/EIOPA final advice and/or the Commission's Draft Level 2 measures, won't be miles away as it stands. On that premise, I've only listed elements which jump out for me.

GENERAL GOVERNANCE REQUIREMENTS

Guideline 3

• Evidence should be collected of the AMSB "proactively" seeking information from committees/key functions

Guideline 5

• No more detail than an expectation that the AMSB "appropriately implements" their key functions - in the explanatory text, it goes on to say that larger companies will be "expected" to fully separate Risk/Actuarial/Compliance/IA, with a series of measures expected to preserve functional independence if smaller companies choose to combine some.

Guideline 7

• Expectation that both AMSB decisions, and how information generated from the Risk Management System (RMS) influences them, is "appropriately documented" - compulsion for Board Decision Logs?

Guideline 8

• Regular System of Governance reviews appear to be expected, which are documented and reported back to the AMSB - the AMSB retains the right to choose who performs it 

Guideline 9 - All policies must include:

• Goal of policy
• Tasks to be performed and by whom (person or role, unlike for validation, where person/s was specified)
• Associated processes and reporting procedures
• Obligations of affected operational teams to inform control functions of "relevant facts" at all times

Guideline 10

• Contingency plans are expected for areas which are "especially vulnerable" - this pushes outside of what one would consider a conventional contingency plan for operational emergencies.

FIT AND PROPER

Guideline 11

• Must have a Fit and Proper persons policy
• It must be equally applicable to both hired staff and outsourced functions

RISK MANAGEMENT

Guideline 15 - AMSB is "ultimately responsible" for:

• RMS effectiveness
• Setting Risk Appetite and Risk Tolerance Limits
• Approving Risk Management strategies and policies

Guideline 16 - Risk Management Policy must cover at least

• Risk categories used and measurement methods
• How each category/grouping of risks is managed
• Risk tolerance limits for all categories in line with Risk Appetite
• Linkage of both SCR and ORSA to risk tolerance limits
• Frequency and content of regular stress tests, and circumstances for additional testing

In addition, the associated guidelines touch on the risk categories within one's Risk Management Policy. There is an expectation for pretty much every category that procedure-level information is included in the policy documents themselves, as well as hard limits, which is unlikely to be the case as it stands.

Guideline 18 - Insurance Risk Policy

• Expected to cover types of acceptable insurance risks, how premiums will cover claims/expenses, as well as how product design accounts for investment restrictions and formal risk mitigation techniques

Guideline 19 - Op Risk Policy

• Expectation that Operation Risk Events will be formally identified/analysed/reported in insurers, and that a system for collecting and monitoring them should be in place.
• Operational Risk Scenarios should be developed and used, based on failures of key persons/processes/systems and external events

Guideline 23 - Investment Risk Policy

• Buzzphrase introduced of managing the level of "security, quality, liquidity, profitability and availability" of one's asset portfolio

OWN FUND REQUIREMENTS AND THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE

Guideline 32

• Concept of a "medium term capital management plan" introduced which covers; planned capital issuances, maturities and distribution policies - not sure how that works for mutuals, but I can see what they're fishing for

INTERNAL CONTROLS

Guideline 33

• "All personnel [should be] aware of their role in the Internal Control system
• The Internal Control system should be "commensurate to the risks arising from the activities and processed to be controlled" - this line should hopefully avoid overkill

INTERNAL AUDIT FUNCTION

Guideline 36

• The Internal Audit policy should include the procedure for informing supervisors [of whistleblowing-level wrongdoing I guess]

ACTUARIAL FUNCTION

Guideline 44

• "Material"deviations of Best Estimate Liabilities should be back-tested for by the Actuarial function, reported on, and remedial changes proposed

Guideline 46

• The Actuarial function is expected to "contribute to" specifying the risk coverage in the internal model, as well as the dependency structure - this feels like areas where, even in larger insurers, the function probably already leads, so will they be asked to take a step back?