Lepus

We all know that the past 18 months have been pretty tricky - to say the least. The lack of, or the ignoring of, proper risk management, not to mention the quality of regulatory oversight at global investment banks, has read like a financial soap opera.

These examples of poor risk control, now compete alongside dramatic episodes of fraud and deception such as the Maddoff ponzi scheme or the amusing 'he said/she said' back and forth that is part of the history of the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger.

It may be better to view 2008 as the year, not when the banks fell apart, but when the true value of risk management became evident. Looking at risk from that perspective, 2009 will be the year of the Risk Manager.

Release of Financial Regulatory Reform Report

Financial Regulatory Reform: A New Foundation, Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation outlines five major objectives that it the Department of the Treasury is seeking to implement in the wake of the financial crisis.

This report has been released by the aforementioned department this week.

Liquidity Risk Tools

Liquidity, or the lack of it, is the cause of most of the problems in today's financial world. Once the credit crunch was in full swing, many banks found that they not able to meet their current and future cash flow needs without impacting on their daily operations or overall financial condition. Many banks failed to perform any liquidity related scenario analyses and did not anticipate that the liquidity inherent in the market would dry up.

FIX and its role in STP

Straight through processing has long been one of those mythical goals in financial technology. Of course pockets of STP, where the trade lifecycle is more or less ticketless and seamless, do occur-in various asset classes or geographical regions. Swift with its strong European marketshare is the de facto standard for post-trade messaging. However, the FIX Protocol has long had a strong US-base and is heavily used for equity trade execution. The migration of FIX around the globe and to other asset classes, most notably foreign exchange, is a major factor in the march towards STP.

Lepus Risk Systems Providers Directory

Time is running out. Now, while supplies last, you can still order your copy of the Lepus' inaugural Lepus Risk Systems Providers Directory. Exclusively from Lepus, the Lepus Risk Systems Providers Directory is the only single comprehensive source of product data on the providers of risk management technology.

From the desk of the research team…

Stress Testing - Ever heard of it?

Stress testing has not only been in the press recently, but the subject of many conversations the Lepus research team has been having with those in the industry on an ongoing basis. However, in the real world, various banks and global regulators may have disparate and conflicting definitions of stress testing. Many of the worst affected institutions were not prepared for such sustained periods of illiquidity, as their simulation horizons had been far too short.