London, England, 31st January 2006 - The
Chartered Management Institute (CMI) recently conducted
a major survey of 109 City compliance managers
to determine the most pressing areas of action
and identify the most urgent unresolved issues.
The survey was sponsored by Optial, the leading
operational risk software provider. It was designed
to drive forward Chartered Management Institute’s
Operational Risk Forum, which supports General
Managers in understanding the wider implications
of the regulatory and operational risk management
environment on their own businesses – both in specific
functional areas and enterprise-wide.
Anthony Epstein, Chairman of the Chartered Management
Institute Operational Risk Forum, commented “We
were concerned to find such a strong reliance
on spreadsheets for compliance monitoring (71%)
and reporting (67%), given the well-documented
history of errors that have been caused by using
spreadsheets for consolidation, and their inherent
lack of security and auditability. This may be
a key factor contributing to the respondents’
lack of confidence in their systems; none rated
their current systems effectiveness as ‘High’
while only 42% expressed confidence in their
system’s ability to meet future changes”. He
added, “This should act as a wake-up call to
the City, given the FSA’s approach of prosecuting
firms which cannot demonstrate adequate controls”.
Chris O’Brien, CEO of Optial, said, “The Chartered
Management Institute OpRisk Survey has highlighted
that a majority of firms (57%) now believe they
need an overall risk model to ensure they catch
any risks that individual systems might miss,
and 38% have implemented such a system. The report
also shows that two-thirds of firms (67%) rank
Workflow as very important to managing risk.
Optial has been designed to let firms implement
an overall risk model within a coherent control
framework, using workflow automation to integrate
all the existing process monitoring systems”.
Judith Graham, Product Director of Optial, added,
“88% of respondents found the idea of an integrated
system very attractive for managing risk across
geographic units. Our customers believe that
the implementation of operational
risk management across any bank requires
a cultural acceptance of the processes involved.
They want the ability to adapt a central control
system to each country’s specific requirements,
so they can consolidate control data directly
from the individuals who perform each process.
Optial’s ability to deliver this has made it
the operational risk platform of choice for multi-country
rollouts by Skandinaviska
Enskilda Banken, IBM and Standard
Chartered Bank.”
About the Chartered Management Institute
The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) is
the premier professional body focused on Management
Practice and Management Development in the UK.
It has some 74,000 members and 480 corporate
members.
Succeeding from the British Institute of Management
founded in 1947, the Chartered Management Institute
received a Royal Charter in 2002 to promote the
art and science of management in the UK and internationally.
The City of London Branch of the Chartered Management
Institute has over 2,500 individual members and
130 corporate members. For over thirty years
this branch has been running programmes for members
to broaden their personal development and management
expertise. Membership represents a broad range
of disciplines, but is biased towards the professional
and service-based businesses that make up the
core of the world’s leading financial centre.
The City of London branch established a City
Operational Risk Forum in 2005 to produce a framework
and guidelines that will enable those in management
positions to understand the wider implications
of the regulatory and operational risk management
environment on their own businesses.
About Optial
Optial has the largest installed blue-chip geographic
footprint of any Operational Risk platform: it
is deployed across 50 countries by a client base
including companies such as IBM and Standard
Chartered Bank. It is supported from centres
in London, Atlanta and Sydney .
Every firm has a unique business model and corresponding
risk profile - even more pronounced for multinational
firms operating across several jurisdictions.
Optial doesn't try to impose 'one size fits all'
processes onto its clients; rather we help our
clients build Total Corporate
Governance by mapping their organisation
structure, operational performance criteria and
control processes into an overall risk model,
using Optial's workflow capability to monitor
and change behaviour. We then set up an individually-configured
implementation to meet specific risk profile,
language and jurisdictional reporting requirements,
before deploying using zero-footprint browser
technology.
The standards-based technology
platform delivers rapid configuration,
low-cost deployment and low-maintenance with
future-proofing. Built-in KRIs and Loss
Database allow firms to align their system
with Basel
II requirements, while Web Services interfaces
and software developer kit enables simplified
integration of existing process monitoring
engines along with other systems such as HR,
CRM and MIS for two-way automated data exchange
and single sign-on. |
