Feature
PCX cancels options trading system
The Pacific Exchange (PCX) last week cancelled plans to use a screen-based options trading system designed by Computershare because of regulatory and political concerns. It has no plans to replace the system.
Worth waiting for?
Just over a year on from the delayed launch of the UK’s new electricity trading arrangements, prices have dropped to new lows. But just how low can generators go, asks Joel Hanley
A cure for Enron flu
Brett Humphreys discusses recent events in the energy sector and the role risk managers can play in improving the industry
Mixed signals from the east
Flaws in Poland’s electricity regime have crippled Warsaw’s two-year-old power exchange. But Slovenia’s power exchange is faring rather better. Peter Joy reports
Utilities renegotiate to survive
For the past 10 years, Argentina’s privatised utilities have been icons of successful energy sector reform. But with the country’s deepening crisis, they face increased difficulties. What can investors do to mitigate such risks, asks Maria Kielmas
Europe’s patchwork path to liberalisation
In the three years since the European Union’s Electricity Directive came into effect much has changed in Europe’s energy industry, but the industry is still far from achieving the goal of a pan-European energy market, as Matt Horsbrugh discovers
Discovering new frontiers
Joerg Engels and Volker Linde report on the changes Germany’s deregulated energy market will have to make as a result of the country’s banking act
Guarded optimism hinges on new tools
Catastrophe bonds
Challenging times for CROs
Chief risk officers
Sweetening the deal
M&A insurance
The risk transfer shell game
Credit derivatives
Managing post-convergence risks in financial conglomerates
Regulatory capital
Breaking through basket credit default swaps pricing
Sponsor’s statement
Corporate focus on credit risk management
Sponsor’s statement
Insurers play catch-up
Insurance companies around the globe are beginning to look at their own risk management practices and are finding them wanting. As a result, many firms are beginning to upgrade their risk procedures.
Lessons Emerging from Disaster
Web access to market data and other tools could trim costs of maintaining redundant office space.
Gross income - what’s in a name?
Banking regulators are pondering whether to change the title ‘gross income’ as currently applied in the simpler approaches for measuring op risk under the Basel II banking accord.
Regulators study terms for abolishing op risk floor
Global banking regulators have asked their technical experts to look at what kind of conditions need to exist in order to get rid of the floor that limits the potential gains for banks using advanced approaches to measuring op risk under the Basel II…
A cost/benefit approach to Basel II
The cost of implementing Basel II could put banks at a competitive disadvantage compared with non-banks, and spur them to ‘de-bank’ to avoid this regulatory burden. Harry Stordel and Andrew Cross say regulators must look at the provisions from a cost…
Weaving an integrated solution
A treacherous credit environment and growing awareness of the danger of credit and market risk correlation have convinced financial institutions that they need to evaluate these exposures together. To get a unified view, will they need to adopt unified…
Industry On Alert
A joint finance-technology-government effort to safeguard the market infrastructure has already resulted in a secret command center and preliminary guidelines for industry-wide best practices.
East European banks could pay Basel II dividend
Major east European banks could take advantage of the Basel II bank capital adequacy accord to reduce their high levels of capital charges through paying higher dividends, a senior Czech banker said in April.