Do rating models embody correctly the impact of macroeconomic variables on debtors’ solvency, determining a lag in downgrading? In pre-crisis periods, when interest rates increases are recorded as well as decreases in real growth rates, rating assessments fail to register risk increases in...

The financial crisis has highlighted, among other things, the limits of risk management and the need to identify better solutions. An effective risk management system cannot only depend on a severe internal governance scheme, ignoring other entities potentially involved, such as public...

The last two years have stressed how special and important banks are. When the financial system fails, the whole economic system is affected. The financial sector has undergone an unprecedented wave of innovation, change, consolidation and now crisis. We now have a better understanding of the...

The ABI choices on Compliance Tests have led to the drafting of the White Paper on Compliance Function and to the need to explore some topic issues. After identifying the categories of checks carried out by the Compliance Function and the main stages of Compliance Risk Management, the analysis...

The definition of an internal process to prevent and manage reputational crises is a priority for banks.The Compliance Function can offer a tangible contribution to implement an effective crisis management process.The definition of a contingency plan, of a team of crisis management and of lines...

Service agreements between the Compliance Function and Internal Auditing can be an effective and efficient option for achieving the objectives assigned to the Function and more generally to the system of corporate controls. Key principles for the drafting of AdS are not meant to be comprehensive...

In Italy the use of bond covenants is restrained by the predominance of SMEs, the significant role of relationship banking, the high costs related to public placements, the lack of investors‘ financial culture, the low amount of loans normally requested by each firm and the lack of liquidity...

This paper aims to stress the importance of market liquidity for the stability of the financial system, emphasizing the pivotal role played by liquidity risk in the development of the current financial crisis, pointing out the flaws of regulation and supervision and stressing the need for their...

The Basel Agreements, designed to pursue financial stability, have been instead a cause of instability, revealing fundamental analytical and operational weaknesses. The idea to define a constant capital ratio through complex statistical models implies serious dangers. A radical change is...

The financial crisis shows the limits of a fragmented surveillance scheme and points out the need of new architectures characterized by simplicity, applicability of rules, lower costs of compliance, lower conflicts of interests, absence of regulatory arbitrage and universality. For this purpose,...