Latest opinions that Stanley Epstein has shared on Finextra

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Stanley Epstein

Associate

Citadel Advantage Group

Member since

09 Oct 2006

Location

Modiin

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Stanley's opinions

The financial crisis and operational risk management

As a committed operational risk professional, I cannot help but stare in amazement amidst all the financial ruin and desolation that surrounds us. There has been a lot of hand-wringing and pronouncements about credit risk, liquidity problems, lack of trust and the like. However to my mind these are all smoke. And this smoke conceals the fundamenta...

29 December 2008 /regulation Innovation in Financial Services

New products - watch your operational risk management

As a committed operational risk professional, I cannot help but stare in amazement amidst all the financial ruin and desolation that surrounds us. The hand wringing and the weeping about credit risk, liquidity problems, lack of trust and the like are all smoke. And this smoke conceals the true cause, in my view, of all the current problems. It al...

16 November 2008 /regulation

Is this compensation?

Executive compensation is in the headlines again. And guess where? Nowhere else but than about executives at the failed Lehman Brothers. I see that the failed investment bank's CEO, Richard Fuld, has been giving evidence to U.S. congressional investigators on executive pay at the firm. And the amounts that are being bandied about are (as usual) sh...

10 October 2008 Innovation in Financial Services

Lip Service

A key element in the development of any tangible product is the risk analysis that is (or should be) included in the design stage. If I build this object/product as specified, how safe is it going to be? Will it harm my customers? Does it open me up to legal actions? Does it comply with local (and international) consumer and environmental regulati...

08 October 2008 /regulation Operational Risk Management

The financial crisis - like a bad movie

It is absolutely frightening, watching how the rumours and the panic spreads. It's really scary following the daily press and being jolted into reality each morning by the blazing headlines as the tide of fear moves from country to country - Ireland, Germany, Italy, Iceland ..... And the names of the banks that are now involved! Where and who next...

08 October 2008 /regulation

Let the innovators innovate!

If you really want to boost the EU's economic fortunes, improve its competitiveness and facilitate its progressive adaptation to the digital age then you need less regulation, not more. And the best regulation is often no regulation at all. Innovation needs space to breathe and to flourish, and to do that it should be as unfettered as possible. T...

04 September 2008 /payments Innovation in Financial Services

Is this a disaster in the making?

If the Misys data are correct we are sitting atop a volcano that is just about to blow! Firstly forty one percent of failed cross-border transactions is appalling! This means that almost every second cross-border transaction is not passing muster. This also raises two very clear and critical issues - transparency and operational risk. On the trans...

04 September 2008 /payments /regulation Operational Risk Management

Ripping out the operational 'guts'

Good for the FSA for warning the investment banks on staff cuts in middle and back office functions . Clearly from the banks side, it is the usual story. Back and middle office staff are expendable. They are simply an added cost “burden” that has to be cut as soon as margins are squeezed. Imagine ripping out half your car’s engine simply because t...

30 August 2008

How do you price reputational risk?

A colleague, involved in operational risk management at a major bank, recently asked me what my feelings are regarding the quantification of the cost of reputational risk. Was it simply something that could be taken as a percentage of revenue or net profit and then just slapped into a spreadsheet or even a balance sheet? And the question was not th...

19 August 2008 /regulation Operational Risk Management

Something is rotten ....

I have been watching unfolding events in the banking world with a sense of incredulity and rising trepidation. It's like watching a train crash in slow motion. It just seems like it is one debacle after another. First we had the sub-prime meltdown which hit us last summer. All that followed by the SocGen saga, which only served to stress that both ...

13 August 2008 /regulation Innovation in Financial Services

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