Risk culture and positive risk management

A mid-size bank felt the need to review its messages around values and behaviours for better regulatory compliance in terms of risk culture and conduct perspective. As corporate and risk culture are strongly tied together, the project quickly transformed into a full revision of the company's behaviour.

The firm was under regulatory scrutiny to improve its risk culture and received internal audit recommendations to produce metrics dashboards regarding conduct and culture within its organisation. Additionally, there was some scepticism from senior management members towards operational risk management.

To tackle these three challenges, BDO dealt with key pain points within the company's corporate and risk culture. At the request of internal audit, the bank was also asked to produce a risk culture and conduct dashboard within three months.

For this highly collaborative project, BDO started by interviewing most of the staff members of this small Tier-3 bank in workshop-style format. The objective was to hear about their grievances as well as the company's strong points according to them.

Using an online based survey-type questionnaire, BDO then ranked these findings in order of importance. This gave the experts three main areas to focus on and improve the corporate culture, risk awareness and proactive management in the organisation.

In parallel, BDO leveraged on all the positive points already in place, to instil an uplifting spirit in the mission. As part of this positive risk management, they performed a "positive bow tie" analysis: looking at the success and achievements of the firm such as smooth IT transition, timely regulatory compliance and well managed operational risk events. They encouraged communications and collaboration on new events, both good and bad.

By adopting a highly inclusive approach to the project, BDO involved the largest number of employees possible. The strategy created a sustainable solution that was well accepted because it fit the realities and style of the bank.

Years after this project's completion, the dashboard created remains actively used and the risk culture has become deeply embedded throughout the organisation.