PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL),  organized a conference entitled: "Risk-based Capital Management" that take place on Thursday 24 June 2010 in the ABL auditorium. The keynote speakers included the PwC global leader on risk-based capital management, Chris Matten from PwC in London. Chris is the author of the definitive work on bank capital management, “Managing Bank Capital: Capital Allocation and Performance Measurement”.

The event was extremely relevant and interesting to senior management of Banks and Financial Institutions. The opening session was commenced with introductory notes presented by the Vice-Governor Dr Saad Andary along with Camille Sifri, PwC country senior partner, who delivered a welcome address and introductions, setting out the aims of the conference. This was followed by a 30 minute brief, delivered by Dr Amine Awad - member of the Banking Control Commission - on the status of implementation of BASEL II in Lebanon and the proposed reforms. This topic was also commented upon by Chris Matten who discussed in more details the effects of those BASEL proposed changes on the Capital Management of the Banks. In the plenary session, Chris Matten also covered Asset and Liability management and the importance of a holistic balance sheet management. During this interactive session, the proposed model for balance sheet management included the following areas: Interest rate risk monitoring, liquidity tisk monitoring, funds transfer pricing, Regulatory Capital reporting, economic capital calculation, capital allocation, capital planning and Capital stress testing.

The conference explored the impact of risk and capital management requirements and looked at the alignment of our local market with best practices. As balance sheets have become more complicated and risk management more specialized, it was only natural that a holistic overview would become more necessary. Banks need to build within their balance sheet management function the skills to perform overall, holistic assets and liabilities management looking at a coherent set of stress scenarios across all risk types and then examining how the bank would perform under these scenarios. 

This conference is part of the ongoing PwC program to bring the latest developments in global best practices in the banking and capital markets industry to the Lebanese Banking sector.