Foreign exchange
Financing embedded value
Life insurance
Credit model rethink
Synthetic credit
Playing catch-up
Automated settlement
The mezzanine wrangle
Mezzanine finance
S&P calls for more risk disclosure
New angles
The CDO detectives
Cover Story
The final countdown
The Basel Committee's most recent quantitative impact study shows a wider variation in capital among participating banks than many had been expecting. But Gerhard Hofmann, Germany's representative on the Basel Committee, reckons Germany's banks are well…
Industry group warns of risk of derivatives crisis
The derivatives industry urgently needs to improve its transaction handling and risk transparency if it is to avoid a crisis, an industry taskforce said yesterday.
Ensuring Insurance
Are existing insurance products meeting financial institutions' needs? Giuffre Associates' Sandra Giuffre finds out
Knocking down barriers
A new reinsurance directive passed by the European parliament in early June will eradicate the collateral requirements demanded by European supervisors. With a unified framework agreed for Europe, politicians are now turning their sights on the US. By…
Is Basel II a hurdle too far for US broker-dealers?
Broker-dealers in the US are having to cope with the SEC's capital requirements, while still being somewhat in the dark about the upcoming Basel II framework. By Choongo Moonga
China makes currency change
After months of increasingly fervent speculation on the future of the renminbi, the Chinese government yesterday shifted away from the currency’s peg to the US dollar.
Webcast >> Op Risk Technology
OPERATIONAL RISK gathered together top technology executives in June to debate the future of the op risk discipline.
MiFID: the race to comply
The EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive has been described as one of the most far-reaching overhauls of the financial industry ever. But with Basel II dominating the headlines, few firms have yet started to prepare in earnest for the 2007…
A rise in VAR
The amount of market risk taken on by the world's leading financial institutions rose sharply last year. Despite continued poor disclosure, most dealers appear well capitalised. By Christopher Jeffery, with research by Glenn Leihner-Guarin
QIS4 results show additional capital is needed, says S&P
The early results of the Fourth Quantitative Impact Study (QIS4), which show a significant reduction in Basel II regulatory capital in Germany and the US, point to the need for additional capital charges under Pillar II of the new banking framework,…
Former Swiss Re weather experts launch hedge fund
Weather risk veterans Mark Tawney and Bill Windle, who left global reinsurer Swiss Re on July 7, are starting a hedge fund, named Takara, Energy Risk has learned. Weather trader Bill MacLauchlan departed Swiss Re at the same time, for personal reasons.
Ex-Citigroup prime broker sets up capital introduction firm
Paul Radley, formerly European head of Citigroup’s prime brokerage capital introduction team, has gone independent, establishing his own capital introduction firm, Radley Capital Investments.
New op risk papers
LONDON – A raft of new technical papers on operational risk have been made available on the web over the past few months. A few of the most interesting are summarised below:
Sponsor's article > AFS Perspective on Basel II and QIS 4:Where do we go from here?
U.S. federal banking agencies recently announced results of the fourth in a series of quantitative impact studies (QIS-4) designed to simulate implementation of the Basel Accord and measure the resultant impact on U.S.financial institutions' capital…
Nymex, Icap to launch gas, crude oil daily settlement derivatives
The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) and inter-dealer broker Icap are to launch an electronic market in same-day over-the-counter (OTC) options on prompt-month settlement prices for crude oil and natural gas. Starting on Monday (July 18), the…
Two new consultation papers from CEBS
LONDON – The Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) launched two substantial consultation papers in June – one on the supervisory review process and the second on credit rating agencies.
M&As spark op risk software shuffle
LONDON AND NEW YORK – Mergers and acquisitions are hotting up again in the op risk software industry. Two acquisition announcements in June have set tongues wagging on both sides of the Atlantic about who the next targets will be, and which potential…