The Moorad Choudhry Anthology, + Website

CHAPTER 19Case Studies: Analysis, Coherent Advice and Problem Solving

“But even if we practice diligently, we will still endure real‐world failure from time to time. And it is often in these circumstances, when failure is most threatening to our ego that we need to learn most of all. Practice is not a substitute for learning from real‐world failure; it is complementary to it. They are, in many ways, two sides of the same coin.”

—Matthew Syed, Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Where Success Comes From, John Murray Publishers, 2016

In this chapter, we aim to bring together all the elements of principle and best‐practice approach which we have presented in this book and join them together in a coherent, user‐friendly format that should serve as a starting template for the “future of bank risk management”. A bank is a dynamic thing, always having to serve the needs of a diverse set of stakeholders, often with opposing requirements. Managing the balance sheet to ensure the bank is long‐term viable means “risk management” in a bank is really more about understanding the surrounding environment and adapting with it and the times; in the same vein, it should be less of a “tick box” process and more a pragmatic one. Similarly to a hospital consultant, extensive experience in real‐world problem solving across different business models is often the best qualification for managing risk in a bank.

To help us in our endeavour we use a number of real‐world case studies to illustrate ...