Risk Practitioner Conference 2016: Interview with Mark Almeida

The theme of this year’s Risk Practitioner Conference is The Convergence of Risk, Finance, and Accounting. Why?

The Risk Practitioner Conference has evolved since its inception 11 years ago, and this evolution reflects the considerable change that has impacted banking and financial markets in this century. What started as a rather unique, regional seminar focused on innovations in credit risk has grown into an event that attracts risk, finance, and technology professionals from around the world. In response to the financial crisis, new regulatory forces and governance practices are driving dramatic change in financial institutions’ management of risk. Stress testing programs implemented by regional banking regulators, new accounting standards, and more rigorous capital adequacy and liquidity risk requirements are bringing risk, treasury, and finance functions closer together. Because this is top of mind for financial institutions, we have organized our program accordingly.

Why is this theme important to Moody’s Analytics?

We have long believed that financial institutions would inevitably leverage modern technology capabilities to undertake better, more precise, and more efficient risk management. This vision is at the core of what we do at Moody’s Analytics. We believe that advanced quantitative analytics can have greater impact if they are integrated and made accessible across an enterprise – from a risk modeling professional to a front-line banker and to the CFO. Although responses to the spate of recent regulatory imperatives have been difficult and costly to implement, we believe that the investment made by banks and insurers to comply with such regulation will ultimately provide the means for better decision-making and enhanced operational oversight of financial institutions. Increasingly, we see that executives of financial institutions are recognizing this. While we’re not there yet, the industry is clearly evaluating this convergence of risk and finance functions, and Moody’s Analytics is eager to contribute to this process by facilitating dialogue among industry participants on these important topics.

What should participants expect at this year’s conference?

This year’s conference builds on what is now a well-established tradition, with sessions designed jointly by industry practitioners and Moody’s Analytics subject matter experts. This results in a selection of topics that are of high priority for the industry. One enhancement that we’re introducing this year is the organization of seminar streams by business function. We are planning four concurrent streams oriented toward technologists, finance and treasury professionals, credit risk managers, and specialists in quantitative risk. This structure will allow us to zero in on function-specific issues that are part of the broader industry themes. For example, we will discuss upcoming changes in impairment standards from multiple perspectives: methodology design and organizational design within the credit risk management stream, and technical architecture design within the technology stream. In a separate session, we will also solicit feedback from auditors and banking supervisors, who of course are the ultimate reviewers of any accounting standard implementation. Through this framework, we look forward to hosting a series of productive sessions that build on the ongoing conversations we have with market participants, all within a forum that brings these important issues to a larger and broad>er audience.

Learn more here.