US Risk Management Association appoints new operational risk head

Charles Taylor has been appointed director of operational risk at the 88-year-old Risk Management Association (RMA), based in Philadelphia, a 3,000-member organisation catering primarily to US commercial banks, community banks and some global investment banks.

Prior to joining the RMA this month, from 2000 Taylor was director of strategy development at Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which handles clearing, settlement and other post-trade services for equity, corporate debt, municipal debt, government securities, mortgage-backed securities and emerging market sovereign debt trades in the US. Before that, Taylor was head of the global risk management practice at Andersen Consulting, now named Accenture.

By this May, Taylor plans to develop an 'Operational Risk 101' course for financial institution auditors, business line managers, compliance officers and new operational risk managers. More advanced operational risk management training courses may follow.

Taylor said the RMA would also be assessing the state of current operational risk data gathering efforts under global investment bank auspices and at private consultancies. From this he will determine what further work the RMA could do to help its members comply with the advanced approach for operational risk regulatory capital reserving proposed by the Basel Committee.