Operational Risk: A Guide to Basel II Capital Requirements, Models, and Analysis

1

From the 108th session on The New Basel Capital Accord Proposal, Hearing before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, United States Senate, 2003.

2

HSBC Operational Risk Consultancy group was founded in 1990, and is a division of HSBC Insurance Brokers.

3

See King (2001).

4

See BIS (1999, p. 15.), with reference to the BIS survey.

5

According to de Fontnouvelle, DeJesus-Rueff, Jordan, and Rosengren (2003), large, internationally active banks typically experience between 50 and 80 losses exceeding $1 million per year.

6

Other well-known examples from the financial industry include losses incurred by Bank of Credit and Commerce International (1991, fraud), Bankers Trust (1994, fraud), NatWest Markets (1997, error, incompetence), and Nomura Securities (1997, fraud). Some individual case studies are discussed in Cruz (2002), Adams and Frantz (1993), Beaty & Gwynne (1993), FDIC (1995), Shirreff, (1997), Crouhy, Galai, and Mark (2001), as well as daily periodicals and various Internet sites.

7

For a more detailed description of the Orange County fiasco, see Jorion (1998), Jorion and Roper (1995), and Irving (1995).

8

Detailed reports on the case include “Not Just One Man—Barings” by L. Chew, Bank of England (1995a), Bank of England (1995b), and Koernert (1996). A number of books have been written about the case: Rawnsley (1995), Fay (1997), Gapper and Denton (1996), Leeson (1997), and Leeson and Tyrrell (2005). The case was turned into a movie, Rogue Trader