The financial services players all have a clearly identified risk department, which is regularly our contact for support missions on various projects.
Still, industrial services players are not left behind and concerns for risk matters are often encountered within all the company's functions. Perhaps, we can say that the CIOs more often handle 'risk' projects, because they are more regularly contacting us.
For these missions, knowledge of our clients' businesses is an additional asset.
Risk management is a key component of business operations in general and financial institutions in particular.
Akeance Consulting has developed a strong expertise in risk management in a wide range of fields for its clients, in particular to :
- assess the level of control of market risks (liquidity, interest rate, foreign exchange, market), credit and operational risks of clients and regulatory capital requirements and redefine the risk management approach ;
- assess the level of compliance with the governance system, risk assessment and capital requirements, investment rules, quality and quantity of assets and capital, compliance with qualitative and quantitative standards when using a partial internal model ;
- monitoring risks through reporting ;
- define the risk acceptance framework and its application in terms of limits, indicators and alert thresholds ;
- anticipate new regulatory requirements and adopt best practices used in the market.
In concrete terms, Akeance Consulting supports companies in different ways by :
- carrying out risk mapping and making the associated recommendations ;
- assessing operational risks ;
- implementing a balance sheet monitoring system ;
- reviewing risk management models ;
- defining and implementing risk controls (credit, financial, liquidity, cash, etc.) ;
- designing and implementing a monitoring model ;
- optimising model performance and assessing risks (treasury, ALM, VaR, internal models, AMA, etc.).
For our
financial services clients, risk management missions often include regulatory matters, whether it is Basel III, MIF2, PRIIPS, IMD, RRP (recovery and resolution plans), etc.
But all industries have to face with regulations such as european regulations, environmental regulations, compliance (anti money laundering and terrorist financing policy), financial ethics, KYC, KYS, etc.
Missions for project guidance that aim at improving risk management also include the improvment of the effectiveness of internal control through the review of processes and/or the implementation of appropriate tools as well as the revision of
associated reporting .
In a banking institution, risks have their own department, in the same way as compliance, sort of "risk twin". This is less true in an industrial services company. But in both cases, certain risks can be reduced if first-level controls are more systematic.
Operating imperfections, whether they are related to issues with the configuration of the tool or with inoperative procedures, end up generating operational and financial risks. Having a better control of its risks at the first level helps to "unclog" risk management overall.
In a bank, the general inspection is clearly a department for control and potential sanctioning; internal audit has a less punitive and more supportive role. In industrial service companies, the role of internal audit is often blurred.
Between a coercive second-level control role and a role that tends towards an "organisation and methods" service provider, the perception of internal audit is not clear. Our experience leads us to believe that an internal audit department is intended to be rather coercive.
