Preparing data functions for the 2017 stress tests

In November 2016, the Bank of England (BoE) published the results of its 2016 banking stress tests which measured the resilience of UK’s major banks’ balance sheet in adverse scenarios. These incorporated a synchronised UK and global recession with associated shocks to financial market prices, and an independent stress of misconduct costs. The stress tests also represented the BoE’s first annual cyclical scenario (ACS), a new approach to stress testing, which examines the resilience of the system to a more severe stress than in previous years.

In 2017, the BoE is expected to extend stress testing even further by including a biennial exploratory scenario which will test the resilience of banks to risks that may not be directly linked to the financial cycle. At a UK level, the 2017 stress test scenario also includes a severe level of stress, with substantial impact on UK residential and commercial property, UK GDP and unemployment. However, the impact could be even more severe if the economic and political challenges currently facing the EU and Eurozone were to be incorporated, such as high-debt levels, security concerns and Brexit.

IFRS 9: The road to intelligent implementation

As the 2018 deadline approaches, the implementation of accounting standard IFRS 9 is revealing itself to be a transformational event instead of just one more item on a crowded to-do list. 

Banks are, accordingly, starting to understand that they will require system architectures and solutions that embody the models they are striving for internally – ones that seamlessly integrate multiple functions, create areas of common ground and feature the efficiency and flexibility to embrace the many changes yet to come. Here Jeroen Van Doorsselaere, vice president, Risk and Finance, at Wolters Kluwer, provides IBS with his thoughts on how to intelligently approach implementation.

Bringing the rulebook into the 21st century: what is the General Data Protection Regulation and why is it important?

Regulatory bodies are often lambasted for their failure to keep pace with the rapid rate of technology change. The way that businesses are regulated to share, use and store customers’ personal data is an area that has long been under scrutiny.

The existing regulation of personal data management dates back to 1995, a time before the majority of financial services providers had digital relationships with their personal and business customers. Indeed, only one in ten adults used the internet.

Today, mobile and internet banking is being used for transactions worth nearly £1 billion a day in the UK alone, according to the BBA and EY. This step change in how personal data is used in the banking industry demonstrates the industry-wide drivers behind a new approach to data protection.