Measuring Operational and Reputational Risk: A Practitioner's Approach

Measuring Operational and Reputational Risk: A Practitioner’s Guide maps out the process of risk assessment and mitigation undertaken by risk managers at UniCredit Group in response to the requirements of the Basel II Accord. One of the greatest challenges faced by the Group was the generic definition of ‘operational risk’ and the need for flexibility on a business-level to integrate the new requirements with the existing control processes. The risk managers at UniCredit had first to set up a dedicated function to co-ordinate and monitor operational risks, where previously these risks were managed by a multitude of processes through a variety of functions.

The book presents a set of risk assessment methods which will be of use to risk managers and quantitative risk analysts for a variety of risk management purposes in unique scenarios. The reader is taken through the processes of risk assessment in view of the Basel Accord requirements, from the identification and evaluation of the calculation dataset, to scenario analysis and analysing insurance for operational risk. The calculation dataset is used for a robust operational loss modelling of capital at risk, for insurance contracts and their effects on individual loss events. The authors present techniques for parametric estimation and analytical methods to select appropriate statistical distributions for severity and frequency of loss classes to obtain VaR for individual business environments. There are also copula-based methods of calculation of overall capital. Finally, the authors present an analysis of insurance policies and models for calculating reputational risk, inextricably linked to operational risk, and a type of exposure which is increasingly important in view of recent large loss events at major banks gaining a great deal of media exposure.

This title presents useful ways of approaching operational risk management to meet the requirements of the Basel II Accord, while the authors’ flexible approach (combining LDA and SBA methods) makes its risk analysis meaningful to different types and sizes of financial institution. The title will be valuable to quantitative analysts, quantitative developers and risk managers trying to digest and integrate the new Basel requirements.