Basel Managers/Consultants

Basel II is an international initiative that requires financial services companies to have a more risk sensitive framework for the assessment of regulatory capital.

More than 30,000 financial institutions worldwide are affected and they have no choice - they must adopt Basel II

The Basel II Capital Accord is due to be finalised and implemented by 2006. It puts a clear obligation on banks to visibly demonstrate that they manage risk. Banks, academics and politicians, particularly in the USA are demanding changes to the draft rules, which they believe are too complex, overly prescriptive and costly

Basel II puts an additional requirement on financial organisations to manage not only credit risk but also operational risk as well and has been described as the biggest IT challenge for the banking industry since Y2K.

Analyst firm Datamonitor predicted that IT spending on Basel II by European banks would peak at about £1bn in 2005. It should be noted however that IT solutions (although making up part of the solution) will not be able to offer a comprehensive risk management process alone.

Embracing Basel II to deliver benefits through improved quality of data will require a close knit combination of operational risk consultancy and data/information repository tool.

Skills/Qualifications/Exerience

Consultants and Managers alike who are involved in the Basel II process will require specific skill sets in order to carry out their roles effectively. Job titles will vary from analysts and Head of Modelling for example to the specific title of Basel Consultant, all however will be working towards the same goals.

For roles of a technical and analytical nature within Basel most candidates will require strong credit risk, modelling and scoring experience. An academic record in a numerate discipline as well as IT skills including SAS or SPSS, Access and VBA. Significant experience in the production and development of credit risk management models, tools and techniques.

Basel is all about change and the management of risk, so individuals looking to enter this field will need to be able to implement and manage change as well as communicate in a not technical way if necessary what the models outputs tell an organisation from a financial and technical perspective.

Experience required varies and if you are interested in a role in Basel and feel you understand the requirements and you have the necessary skill sets then please feel free to contact a specialist recruitment agency, such as, FSG Ltd to discuss it further.

This information has been provided by FSG Ltd, click on their logo to view all of their jobs.