Risk management from a banking compliance officer's viewpoint
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Published date | 01 January 1999 |
| Pages | 27-30 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb024994 |
| Author | John Fox |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance Volume 7 Number 1
Risk management from a banking
compliance officer's viewpoint
John Fox
Received: 27th November, 1998
NatWest UK, Drapers Gardens, 12 Throgmorton Avenue, London EC2N 2DL: tel: 0171 920 5555;
Fax: 0171 454 6909.
John Fox is a Law graduate who moved
from Manchester to London in 1990 to
work (or LAUTRO. At the Regulator, John
dealt with investor complaints before join-
ing the monitoring department and
under-
taking visits to Product Providers. John
transferred to PIA in 1994 leading a team
on monitoring visits to a wide range of
Product Provider and IFA firms until his
move to NatWest in 1998. As Head of
Retail and Commercial Compliance at
Nat-
West John is responsible for compliance
oversight in Retail and Corporate Banking
Services, Mortgage Services, Card
Ser-
vices and NatWest Insurance Services, the
Group's IFA. John is also Head of Group
Data Protection.
ABSTRACT
This paper provides an overview of
some
of
the
key
drivers
for the
compliance
officer's contribu-
tion to risk management in a complex group
situation. The importance of
ensuring
the com-
pliance officers's proximity to the business is
emphasised against the backdrop of the need to
manage competing interests and the impact of
evolving regulations. The paper identifies
major internal and external influences on the
role of the compliance officer and argues that
there is much synergy between the objectives of
the compliance and risk management functions
in a banking group.
From a compliance officer's point of view
the most striking features of a banking
group arc the complexity of its structure,
the broad range of businesses in which the
group is engaged and the great divergence
in the objectives of its business units. All of
these can combine to create several risk
cultures where there are separate policies
and strategies for different aspects of the
group's financial activities. By way of
example, a banking group might be
involved in activities as diverse as the pro-
vision of corporate treasury services, debt
structuring, telephone banking and life
assurance and pensions. In this kind of
world risk is perceived differently, and per-
sonally, by each functional unit and
increasingly group compliance has a part to
play along with group risk audit in bring-
ing together these different strands, to har-
monise the group's systems and procedures
and to help identify, measure and manage
risk.
To achieve this goal the compliance offi-
cer needs to balance the objectives of the
many interested parties who want to influ-
ence the way in which banks manage risk.
These include external analysts, supervisors,
lobbyists and the bank
itself.
The compli-
ance officer's task is to help design and
implement successful policy for his group
while taking proper account of these wide-
ranging internal and external influences.
Journal of Financial Regulation
and Compliance, Vol. 7, No. 1,
1999,
pp. 27-30
© Henry Stewart Publications,
1358-1988
Page 27
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