The European Union’s Reinsurance Directive further strengthens the case for the removal of the collateral requirements that the US imposes on EU reinsurers, Europe’s top financial regulator said in June.

LONDON – Although financial firms have made a great deal of progress over recent years in developing a compliance function, there is not much evidence of coherent, sustainable strategies aimed at achieving compliant business practices and processes in the longer term. This is a key conclusion of an international study undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the professional services group, published at the end of May.* When addressing regulatory requirements, the study says, compliance functions are often designed to “essentially paste over the perceived gaps in an organisation’s existing control framework.”

Delegates to the Boston Fed’s conference on advanced op risk approaches were impressed with the progress made despite current difficulties. David Keefe reports

Northern Trust is developing a so-called loss distribution approach (LDA) combined with extreme value theory (EVT) to model its operational risk, corporate risk measurement vice presidents Dan Brown and Jonathan Wang explained in a joint presentation to the Boston conference.

Insurance supervisors are trying to pre-empt future disputes with accounting rule-makers over valuing insurance contracts. David Keefe reports lobal accounting rule-makers have welcomed moves by the world’s insurance regulators aimed at avoiding future arguments by establishing clearly at an early stage where differences might arise on a key accounting issue.

The increasingly common challenges faced by the banking and insurance industries in risk management, prudential regulation and accounting put a premium on cross-fertilisation of ideas, a top international banking regulator reiterated in early June.

The guardians of US securities markets grossly miscalculated the cost of section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

A substantial number of emerging market countries will be joining the G10 and the rest of the European Union for the start of the Basel II accord.

The relationship between insurance risk and operational risk needs to be understood if it is to be managed effectively. Here Clive Martin offers insights on alternative approaches that have lessons for anyone managing this relationship

Operational risk is behind most insurance company failures in Europe. A new report says regulators must adapt. By David Keefe