Coming of age

$urendra Naidoo, risk management director and group head of operational risk at Standard Bank, believes the operational risk function can claim success when the firm’s business managers are educated to the level where they manage op risk themselves

It is becoming clearer which banks have shown prudence throughout a decade of financial excesses, and those in South Africa seemed to have kept clear of the worst risks. The country has by many standards a developed economy, but suffers some of the infrastructure frailties common to its developing neighbours and, like the rest of the world, it has not been immune from the economic downturn. Standard Bank of South Africa, the country’s largest bank, has remained fundamentally undamaged by the