The Financial Instructions Have Been Exposed Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

For a further knowledge of what the topic is all about, this section will permit to have an overview of what operational risks are from the Basel definition and scientific publishers. The BIS (Bank for International Settlement) has created in 1974 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) in Basel in Switzerland. The aim is to create a worldwide banking regulation by publishing a set of minimum capital requirements for banks to contribute to the financial system stability. The bad thing is that the Committee cannot force countries to follow those rules. The representatives members are from central banks and regulatory authorities mainly from leader countries i.e. G 20 countries and they use to have a meeting 4 times per year. It has been created because of the systemic impact of Herstatt Banks bankruptcy in Germany. In 1988, Basel I was focused on the capital measurement system with the COOKE ratio. The goal of this ratio is that 8% of a credit has to be financed by banks equity. Then in 2004, Basel II has been developed and composed of a risk management based on three Pillars. The first one deals with the maintenance of the regulatory capital calculated for the three major components of risk that a bank can face to i.e. the credit risk, the operational risk and the market risk. The credit risk can be computed following three ways (Standardized, Foundation IRB and Advanced IRB Approach). The operational risk which can also be calculated thanks to three approaches (Basic Indicator Approach (BIA), Standardized Approach (STA), and the Internal Measurement Approach) even if we will see that there are others ways of calculation and finally the market risk which has as preferred approach the VaR (Value At Risk). Then, the second Pillar deals in one hand with the regulatory response to the first Pillar, giving to regulators much more freedom to improve tools over those available to them under Basel I, in another hand provides a framework for dealing with all the other risks that a bank may face to, such as systemic risk, pension risk, concentration risk, strategic risk, reputational risk, liquidity risk and legal risk, which the agreement combines under the title of residual risk. And then it gives to banks the ability to review their risk management system. Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) is the result of Pillar 2 of Basel II accords. Thus, the Third Pillar has to complement the minimum capital requirements and supervisory review process by developing a set of disclosure requirements which will allow the market participants to gauge the capital adequacy of an institution and permit a market discipline supplements regulation as sharing of information facilitates assessment of the bank by others including investors, analysts, customers, other banks and rating agencies which leads to good corporate governance. So this Basel II agreement has as goal to create an international standard for banking regulators to con trol how much capital banks need to put aside to guard against the types of financial and operational risks banking (and the whole economy) mainly thanks to the Mac Donough ratio. This ratio does not only take into account the credit risk but also the operational risk and the market risk (BCBS 196). Here is the complete formula to compute the Mac Donough ratio: Besides, Basel II also forced banks to manage operational risk in an explicit way to assign value equity i.e. the new accord demanded to banks to hold a capital requirement for operational risk but also had motivated financial institutions to have more precise measure and a better management of this type of risks. So Basel II agreement improved much more the tools of Basel I, the market was more transparent for credit risk, customer data, accounting systemsÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦, the emerging markets had a chance to decrease their risk premiums in the long term. The agreement was very popular because several coun tries adopted it all around the world. However, the shortages of investment demands for the financial assets issued in the emerging economies occurred in the short term, due to additional risk calculations, it also did not take into account the activities which were not in the bank statement and resulted as a main problem. So regarding the news that occurred since 2007 with financial scandals and crises of subprime, financial and economic crises but also in response to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the BIS decided to improve Basel II and replace it by Basel III, which has been adopted in 2010. It covers microprudential (bank-level) and macroprudential (across the banking sector) elements, it establishes goals like improving the banking sectors ability to absorb shocks thanks to the creation of stress test, market liquidity risk and capital adequacy thanks to bank leverage. Basel III try to improve risk management and governance and strengthen banks transparency and disclosur es. On the same principle of Basel II, there are three Pillars. The Pillar 1 focus firstly on the capital by raising the requirements to the quality and the level of capital: (common equity 4.5% of risk-weighted assets), the capital conservation buffer (common equity of 2.5% of risk-weighted assets, total common equity standard 7%), the countercyclical buffer (a range of 0-2.5% comprising common equity), secondly on the risk coverage i.e. the strengthened securitizations, the significantly higher capital for trading and derivatives activities and the strengthening of the counterparty credit risk framework, and thirdly by computing the leverage ratio. The Pillar 2 is about the risk management and supervision with supplemental requirements compared to Basel II. And the Pillar 3 revised disclosures requirements but also enhanced it. To conclude, Basel III manages better the risk coverage, has a higher and better-quality capital, leverage ratio became the backstop to the risk-based requ irement, for example in periods of stress the buildup of capital can be drawn down and finally it permits the introduction of two global liquidity standards and respect more the systemic risk. The weakest point are that already some critics occurred, like Slovik (2012) who said that the new requirement will increase the incentives of banks to game the regulatory framework which could further negatively affect the stability of the financial system. But also we can regret that the static risk-weights on asset classes fail to capture time-variation in relative assets risks. The requirements, for most of the part, are focused on individual risk of financial firms, the risk-weights approach is an attempt to target relative prices for lending and investments of banks, rather than restrict quantities or asset risks directly and also it does not employ more direct bank-level or asset-level leverage restrictions. Basel III eventually comes into full force in 2018 after a period of review and testing from 2013 to 2018. In that period of time banks will have time to raise capital in an orderly fashion for markets by following step by step, year per year, the ratio implemented to be ready for 2018. As the regulation advice and Basel bring out, managing all the risks (specific, systemic, liquidity, counterparty, interest rate, FOREX, operationalÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦) are the most important to not lose money for companies. This interrogation is very important for the financial sector because it is one of the main reasons where most of the problems come from leading a loss of money and then customers. Almost all of the banks and big brokers have nowadays a risk management department but it is still quite new in this financial sector and has been created and developed this last 10 years. Thats why, the financial sector has to copy what has already been done in others industries sectors to manage industrial risks thanks to ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) impleme nted for example in the car industry, nuclear, chemistryÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ As we saw earlier, there are many risks and all those risks are different and operational risks do not have to be mixed up with credit risks and market risks. To develop this point, credit risk is the risk of loss inherent to the default of a borrower in relation to the repayment of its debts (bonds, bank loans, commercial loans ). This risk is divided into two types i.e. default risk which occurs in case of failure or delay of the borrower on the payment of principal and / or interests of its debt and the recovery rate risk in case of default and risk of degradation of the quality of the credit portfolio. Market risk is also a risk of losses on balance sheet positions on all assets and liabilities company and off-balance sheet records that are incurred but not yet actually received or paid, due to market price changes. This risk includes both instruments related risks relating to interest ra tes that the foreign exchange risk and the risk commodities (like stocks). These two risks differ from the operational risk which is composed of direct or indirect risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed operational due agents, procedures, systems or external events from the Basel definition. For example, Power (2005) established that the operational risk assessment differs from traditional risks of the bank including the absence of known outstanding Operational risks began to be managed from Basel Agreement II in order to allocate an amount of equity. Before those companies were not managing those risks and realized that after scandals, frauds and crises that it was mandatory to take into account the operational risk in the management of the banks. This topic is current because it has been highlighted thanks to the different crises, fraud and events that occurred this last 4 years. These events have showed that managing risk especially operating risks is essential from dif ferent point of views i.e. for the image and reputation of the bank, for the financial point of view, but it also costs money to resolve problems and then to communicate on it after its resolution. Besides, operational risks are linked to people, to the management, the intra and inter-communication. A good management can avoid spending money for mistakes that you be averted and keep a good reputation. Thus it will go through a huge improvement for banks and huge development for brokers these next few years. First of all, operational risk at the creation of Basel was not a preoccupation and Basel I was not focused on it. However on Basel II, the committee studied it and the following definition has been published and transposed in European legislation (Directives 48/2006 and 49/2006) and national legislation (NBR Regulation NSC no. 24/29 of 14.12.2006) on the following definition i.e. Operational risk is the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed due to procedures, human factors and systems or from external causes. Legal risks are included and strategic risks are not (BCBS, 2003). Nonetheless, this definition evolved and not everybody agreed on this definition, Vanini (2003) criticized it and completed it on the way that, for him, the Basel definition is too strict and creates problems in the implementation of it i.e. only potential processes of losses are taken into account and not the possibility of gain. His point of view is interesting because by going further on that idea, it means that main actors are the people who can make faults but also detect it at the same time so it is quite complex to determine a strategy to control the management and behavior of people when exactly those people are applying it. Besides Vanini deplores that the Basel definition do not take into account the previous losses and the future one and that losses are only direct whereas most of them are indirect. However, from this text, at the beginning previous losses wont be studied but then with the implementation of the management of operational risks there should not have previous losses as Vanini says at least. However after few years of implementation of management of risk operational, previous losses will be highly reduced so Vanini point of view can be discussed further. Moreover, indirect and direct losses from non management of operational risks are not clearly defined and can be mixed up regarding the Basel definition. To come back to Basel II agreement, the committee structured the operational risks in 7 types : internal and external frauds, employment relation and safety at work, customer, business and product relations, damage to physical assets, business disruption and system failures and execution of operations, deliveries and process which allow us to study on different cases regarding on what face more a broker. For the seven types of operational risks, an example will be given to better understand the meaning of each one. Intern al frauds are inaccurate information about positions, theft by an employee, insider acting for its own account ; external frauds are robbery, forgery, damage to hacking ; employment relationship are workers compensation claims, violation of health and safety of employees, discrimination claims, liability ; customer, business and product relations are default counseling, documentation misleading, breach of banking secrecy, bad choice of customers and providers, money laundering ; damage to physical assets are acts of terrorism, vandalism, earthquake, fire, flood ; business disruption and system failures are failures of equipment or software, failure of computer or telecommunication systems, power outages and finally execution of operations, deliveries and process are composed of saving data error, failure in collateral management, gaps in legal documentation, failure of suppliers. Jobst (2007) agrees on the definition but prefers to split it in two categories : internal and extern al operational risk. For him, various risks compose internal risks. The first one is people risks i.e. the loss exposure is attributed to the potential failure of the management, the organizational structure or other human failures. Most of those failures are caused by a poor management, a poor or inexistent training for managers and employees but also because of an inadequate controls, poor staffing resources, or other factors. The second one is the process risk which means that failures are linked to the breakdown of established processes, inadequate process mapping within business lines and technology or system risk. For both internal and outsourced operations, risks reflect the operational exposure to disruptions and outright system failure. These risks usually show up for regular business operations, such as breaches in internal controls and monitoring, internal and external fraud, legal claims or business disruptions and improper business practices. Moreover Jobst (2007) goes further by defining it as the risk of some adverse outcome resulting from acts undertaken or neglected in carrying out business activities, inadequate or failed internal processes and information systems, misconduct by people or from external events. He is the first who included legal risk from the failure to comply with laws as well as prudent ethical standards and contractual obligations, but excluded the strategic and reputational risk. However these two previous risks are linked to the non-management of operation risks and can arise as a consequence (or impact) of operational failures as well as from other events by saying that other risk terms are seen as potential consequences of operational risk events. For example, reputation risks is potentially dangerous in the non management of operational risks because there is a negative advertising regarding an institutions business practices, whether true or not, and will cause a decline in the customer base, costly litigation or rev enue reductions. The strategic risks have current and prospective impact on earnings or capital arising from adverse business decisions, improper implementation of decisions, or lack of responsiveness to industry changes. Strategic risk is a function of the compatibility of an organizations strategic goals, the business strategies developed to achieve those goals, the resources deployed against these goals, and the quality of implementation. On the other side of external risk, Jobst (2007) expands his point of view based on environmental factors i.e. political or regulatory regime change, new competitor that changes the business paradigm, natural disasters or not, terrorism, vandalism, and other such factors that are outside the control of the firm. Jobst gave a very large definition and I think that this list of events can help to change the management of the company and push to take risks i.e. operational risks to compete and get better result to face to problems but it should not have to be taken into account as operational risks because most of those events are already linked to market risks. Another point of view has been given by Jarrow (2008), he also defines operational risks in two types but on a different way than Jobst i.e. the risk of a loss due to the firms operating technology and the risk of a loss due to agency costs. For him, there are no gains, only losses with different economic characteristics. The determination of economic capital is, regarding the current methodology for the operational risk, overstated because the computation omits the banks net present value generating process. He thinks that it is conceptually possible to estimate the operational risk processes parameters by only using market prices, the non-observability of the firms value makes this an unlikely possibility, except in rare cases. Instead, we argue that data internal to the firm, in conjunction with standard hazard rate estimation procedures, provides a more fruitfu l alternative. For Jayamaha (2005), operational risk differs from others banking risks and Basel II needs a separation between the capital allocations for operational risk. To conclude, there are various definitions, none of them are wrong but interpreted by each of the authors. That is all the complexity of operational risks. It is based on the probability that a risk occurs. And the risks as we saw before are various so even more difficult to assess, prevent, manage and communicate to restore a good reputation and image towards professional and individuals. For Basel Committee (BCBS 222), the risk management has to be part of the politic of the banks and the decisions in terms of risk coverage, analysis and interpretation, scalability and comparability across group institutions have to be taken as a priority i.e. A bank should determine the risk reporting requirements to best suit its own business models and risk profiles. For Basels supervisors, they expect that risk managemen t reports will be complete but how it can be possible whereas operational risks are various, it can be difficult to implement a worldwide operational management rule because products proposed by banks to customers are different from a country to another but also from the establishment with a level and origin of risk different to each others. Thereby this graduating project focus on the management of operational risks and its control regarding all the institutions that regulates it. In 2001, the Basel committee realized a survey on 89 international banks, a bank has been affected by an average of 528 instances of operational risks, mainly on retail banking, generating an average loss per unit average of 10 000 ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¬. It follows a gross loss average of ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¬90 million per institution, there are lots of famous example like Socià ©tà © Gà ©nà ©rale in 2008 ($4.9 billion) due to unauthorized trades done by the trader Jerome Ker viel, Sumitomo Corporation in 1996 ($2.9 billion), Orange County in 1994 ($1.7 billion), Daiwa Bank in 1995 ($1.1 billion), Barings Bank in 1995 ($1 billion) and Allied Irish Bank in 2002 ($700 million)ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ To take into account the percentage of those risks, a risk mapping has been done and imposed for and by banks. For Bon Michel (2011) This approach is part of an effort to streamline the complexity in an uncertain world. With the crisis it highlights the fact that figures of ratios and ratings mean everything and nothing at the same time in the financial sector and everything is about interpretation and comparison. So this mapping risk was created to reassure directors, managers, rating agencies, regulators, pressÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦. But for Bon Michel (2011) can we really trust the results of the mapping? The answer is that the construction of intelligence risks can generate a change in the perception of risk by the same individuals and th us of their actions. Taleb (2009) thinks that Rationality itself could be an obstacle to the identification of a risk often characterized by the interdependence of causes because of the complexity. Operational risks, as we saw on Basel, are linked to people so that risk is, by nature, strongly linked to the human component (Power, 2005). The Basel committee worked on Basel III thus the operation risks will be more controlled and highlighted. Like that, the banks would less suffer of the impact of the human impact and its bad management of operating risks in case of crises and scandals like as seen earlier for Socià ©tà © Gà ©nà ©rales case in 2008 or even for Barings in 1995, Calyon in 2006 or famous internal frauds such as JP Morgan Chase in 2006, Bank of China in 2007 or commercial litigation in 2006 with the Deutsche Bank or fire in the headquarter of the Credit Lyonnais in 1996, these scandals do not give a positive image of the bank. The press uses to relay it in the hea dline for few days or months. Customers read it and after the word of mouth begin. This external communication cannot be controlled by the bank. Generally, this is the worse for a company. The employees and managers suffer also of that so training has to be done to surpass the impact of the event and be able to give an answer to all the attack they have from the family and customers. The intangible assets are a very important notion than operating risks affect for years like the brand name, the image, the reputation. Even external events affect banks like attacks because citizens do not trust in institutions, fear appearÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ During the crises, the bankruptcy of a bank or a scandal like Madoffs system was able to affect the entire sector and by definition all the others banks, which lead that customers wanted to withdraw their economies. So ethic has the reputation to be a bad word in finance and it has to change by re-establishing a good image of the fina nce sector, in what way a new culture. The change has to be done from the top of the management i.e. operational risks could be avoided if a good management is implemented and if the employees would care about their banks. In this globalized world, people have to be reassured; the confidence is one of key word and important data that everybody forgot because the goal was to make money. Thus, the aim of the management of operational risks is to reinforce transparency and restore confidence. That goal always existed but events, scandals have updated it. Operating problems also come from an error from the machines or an error from the human. Thus to avoid it, it could be possible to implement very strict strategies to eliminate it by capitalizing the mistakes whether voluntary or not. The best point to manage it is to determine the risk to control it and mitigate the impact on the first step and on the second step to understand why and how it happened to correct and avoid that kind of case. The banks should, as what has been seen, do more daily controls and audits in a restrictive point of view and also train employees. A bonus could be given if the employee reacts in a good way, do not try to fraud and promote its company simply has been a good employee. In my previous company i.e. a broker, there were a risk manager and all the employees received at the beginning a training to face to potential problems. This should be compulsory because it permits to go through all the problems with customers but also in intern with the crash of the trading platformÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ In France, it is coming but not in this way, they force employees to pass an internal exam to be able to face to it, some companies ask to pass the AMF (French Market Authorities) certification. Like that employees know what they can or cannot do to face at an internal or external situation; they wont try to cheat, hide or fraud because they will be aware of the damage that it can cost for them, for the department, for the company and at the end for the customers. Besides, different departments are involved in the management of operating risks, like the general inspection, IT, back office, communication, customer services, investors relationsÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦so all those employees have to be trained to face to it hereby one of the solutions is to reinforce the corporate culture, like that, employees will be involved in their job as well in the improvement of their company. Sometimes, board of directors and managers are not also in the best position for that, because they could not have the best behaviors and reactions i.e. panic of the management of Kerviel case in selling position during the United States of American day off. They can forget the common sense and act as individual careerists. Or they can react as a paternalist by trying to support the company and his employees to the event that occurred. Nevertheless to rebuild a good re lationship with the customers, the big famous banks created online bank with less fees and more attractive contracts, products and new names than their mother societies. Those brokers were not impacted by the crises and by the bad image of the banker. The reason why, is because there are new companies with no background like the major banks where most of population believe that they are not clear, corrupted and use to make a lot of speculation. Customers built this bad image on operating risks that occurs for banks. To conclude, the impact of a non-management has to be measured recently, the BIS wrote in 1998 a document on the management of operational risks. It has not been done since the crises and the internal events, fraud that occurred these last 5 years. Customers, customers, prospects, employees, directors are suffering of the non-management of operations risks and it has to be studied. Foremost the assessment and the management of operational risks are different regard ing activities in the financial sector and countries. Power (2005) said that The operational risk assessment differs from traditional risks of the bank including the absence of known outstanding. It is diffuse, multifaceted and ambiguous. Thus, we have to adapt the estimation of operational risks regarding the human component, where businesses are based and the type of companies i.e. banks, credit establishment, brokers based Spain, France, England, China, India, United StatesÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ Banks are split in different activities; traditionally it is composed of deposit banks, retail and investment banking. Besides recently, banks developed new services like by selling assurance productsÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦, and the online banking account from retail banking i.e. e-banking and the online banking specialized in stock exchange for individual investors. It really was an expectation of customers. Thus most of French banks have their own subsidies; usuall y banks developed it under another different brand name to manage separately the reputation and operating risks related to both of their brand name. Besides, online brokers benefit of a huge development these last ten years and was forced to focus on risk management. From that, a new position inside the company has been created i.e. the compliance officer for investment services (RCSI), compliance and internal control officer (RCCI). The compliance officer is an essential element in the protection of its establishment against operational risks; that person also plays a role in protecting the integrity of the markets and guarantees the primacy of customers interests. That position will emerge stronger from the current crisis in financial institutions. The importance to control and manage risks has raised the function of Risk Manager all around the world. This decision coincides with Basel II and the focus on the management of operation risks. Thereby we are going to focus on what has been done and developed in those companies and how it has been treated on the research side as Garrity (2007) summed up it as below with the seven types of operational risks defined in Basel II crossed with all the types of financial business lines in this sector. Graph 1 : Garrity (2007) Basel II operational risks crossed with financial businesses These seven types of business lines hold to different groups activities. The corporate finance is mainly composed of mergers and acquisitions, securitization, privatization, debt securities, stock market, loans, initial public offering, secondary market. The financial markets has as activities debt securities, foreign exchange, raw materials, own position securities, fixed value income, stock market, brokerageÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ the retail banking is known by everyone for our daily life i.e. loans and deposits, banking activity, trust and wealth management. The commercial banks are used by companies to finance proje cts, real estate program, exportation, factoring, leasing, warranties, bill of exchange. The payment and settlement are payment and collection, transfer of funds, cleaning and settlement. Then for agencies services, it is based in escrow, certificates, securities lending. Asset management is to manage the assets in different ways (centralized, separated, retail, institutions, closed or open way). And finally the retail brokerage, specialized companies usually online one which execute operations on financial markets for customer in B to C. All the business lines are defined in detail in Annex 1. Not all those types of financial companies will be studied; we are going to focus more on Asset Management, Hedges Funds, Credit establishment and Retail brokerage. First of all, asset management sector benefits of a huge worldwide expansion, it means that each banks usually has its own asset management department. It is also possible to find independent asset management companies and mana gement on behalf of third parties. But we will more focus on banks departments. The structures of these departments are quite similar to banks and will have to follow Basel II rules and the European directive. To avoid bankruptcy or financial difficulties, few solutions have been implemented based on Basel II regulation by obliging banks the establishment of ratios for example to increase their equities linked to operational risks. Investment banking already had theirs owns and specific regulations like the European directive UCITS III since 2003 to implement ratios i.e. increase the minimum capital requirement of UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) funds or be careful to have a minimum of equity of 0.02% of the total capital requirement amount. Another ratio is that companies have to hold at least 25% of the total amount of overhead; this is called the principle of the obligation of means. The goal is to protect companies in case of operational problems if companies need quickly available cash to survive until the resolution of problems. Asset management department, which were not concerned by the Cooke ratio established by Basel, defined a prudential ratio as a percentage of equities for each activity of banks. This evolution is due to a change in the calculation of McDonough ratio related to operational risks because the computation is now taking into account the asset management activities of banks. LEFAMA, lassociation europà ©enne des gà ©rants dactifs, a suscità © à   ce jour deux à ©tudes : la premià ¨re, publià ©e dà ©but 2001, porte sur les risques opà ©rationnels One the other hand, the definition of operational risks for Hedge Funds is slightly different. For CAPCO (2003), it includes the operating environment of the fund i.e. middle and back office functions such as trade processing, accounting, administration, valuation and reporting. This combination of Multiple Risks spans these categories. The evidence of non managing risks has been highlighted mainly for Hedge Funds. A survey  [1]  noticed that over 10 years (1996-2006) half of the hedge funds went to bankruptcy because of an insufficient control of operational risk only as it is confirmed in the article INFORMER LES INVESTISSEURS DES RISQUES OPÉRATIONNELS DES HEDGE FUNDS (2009) published in a bank revue. For most of them, fraud is the main reason i.e. embezzlement or false valuations of capital as CAPCO (2003) shows in the graph below. Figure 1: CAPCO (2005) graphs showing the different types of risk failure and the detail of operational risks The opacity of the management regarding operational risk exists because those companies are not forced to provide information to investors about the management process and the risks linked to operational risks. Besides, hedge funds have a specific structure; usually they are off shore companies trading on OTC (Over The Counter) trading on illiquid products mark et or by doing arbitrage. With this kind of activity, operational risks are specific so less easy to prevent. Regulations tried to implement for each complex product a prospectus. The published prospectus alert investors to be aware of the risks known However, all the operations risks cannot be mentioned on it because lots of are not defined. Besides, Giraud (2004) confirm that managers and investors are more focused on the level of financial risks instead of Hedges Funds operational risk, they should more care about risks related to the operational weaknesses which are much higher. From researches, it has been established that one fund out of three do not have a department in charge of risk management which means that there are no control on the levels of risks that investors are exposed to. So a better management of operational risks has to be done to reinstall the trust of investors. One of the main solutions is to select a good manager who knows and cares about risks by doing key risk indicators and reporting without being too expensive and binding to establish or ideally to have a specialized risk analysis department with a tighter regulatory control at the first, second and third level with a review of the funds books and records. This would allow having a full transparency viewing of the strengths and weaknesses of the funds operations and a measure of the appropriate risk premium that should be expected to justify towards investor a higher level of operational risk. Hedge Funds could also reinforce the relationship between investors and the company thanks to a permanent dialogue. The risk department could identify the potential weaknesses of every vehicle i.e. legal entity which receive or acquire assets backed debt that investors want to invest in. Those information could help investors to choose a potential investment and to take into consideration not only the financial characteristics of the fund (historical returns, risk factors, volatility), b ut also the operational risk profile of the fund as it is already practiced in the industry sector like said Giraud (2004). However, due to a lack of maturity and opacity in this industry, it is not easy to assess the quality and success likelihood of the investment strategy, even if the operational due diligence process is highly specialized in line with the investment style (as different investment strategies result in different operational requirements). However for Giraud (2004) operational due diligence process will not replace the traditional background checks on the companies and individuals involved in the hedge fund activity. Besides, operational due diligence does not overlap with the responsibility of the auditors, even if it does provide an insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the administration of the fund. However the implementation of financial and operational due diligence can be implemented with the support of the analysis of internal and external department . This process could be a first step in the regulation that regulator are making stronger. Then, credit establishments have to follow Basel rules since the creation and implementation of Basel II (BCBC, 2006) and others regulations referring to this industry. Besides, those companies have developed an important internal control. To evaluate operational risks, risk mapping has been created in this sector to define all the types of potential operational risks in the desire to streamline the complexity in an uncertain world as said Bon Michel (2011). Besides, he adds that only experts can create this map because they know all the risks and have all the knowledge of risk held at those who have mastered specific skills and operational who face this risk daily. However, we can ask ourselves about the rationality and veracity of the results of a risk mapping, in a world where cheating or not showing the true financial results is a usual and normal rule. Taleb (2009) think in another way i.e. the rationality itself is it not an obstacle to the identification of a risk often characterized by the interdependence of causes due to the complexity Figures means lots of things and nothing at the same time so as we can interpret figures and results. Thus to control and manage the operational risks, Bon Michel (2011) showed that if there are dedicated managers, employees will be more flexible and would more agree in a change of the management which could change behavior and then actions. Thus, for retails banks, the operation risks are those that use the most of equities after credit risks. For retail banks, this is to minimize regulatory risk capital by identifying, monitoring and controlling operational risk for frequent small losses and not just for large potential losses. The goal is to identify events with actual or potential losses, internal or external incidents that create slight impacts or important frequencies. Therefore, a good method of measurement and contro l of operational risk should normally result in a capital saving relative to a fixed type approach. The report done by Operational Riskdata eXchange Association highlights the increasing of external fraud and also event risk. Also, if the event types execution, delivery and process management and customers / products and business practices are two of the three most common and costly risks every years, it has been established that external fraud is increasing very fast. To better understand the situation, this type of event represented 32% of gross losses by the end of 2009, against 9.5% in 2006. The phenomenon has been updated by the growth of online fraud, with different methods such as phishing or pharming used for identity theft and embezzlement. The retail banking contributes 60% of gross loss in operational risks which lead it to the largest in the financial sector and around 30% of total losses identified have as minimum amount 20,000 euros. By comparison, Trading Sales contr ibutes to a significant loss (22.6%), followed by commercial banks (14.3%). However it is difficult to warn it because there is an evolution in the nature of operational risk and the heaviness of the organization. Device controls is both mature and evolving. Control functions as we will see later tend to be organized continuously, in terms of organization, profiles and tools to achieve a qualitative and quantitative control. However, beyond the most publicized case, all banks are aware that zero risk does not exist and that the ability of individuals to attempt circumventing existing devices is unlimited. The efficiency of the devices must be constantly questioned, especially as industrialization permanent control and operation of sophisticated tools can sometimes have adverse effects in terms of efficiency. Indeed, the pyramidal structure of responsibilities and refinement of controls define the actors in charge of monitoring and frequency of exercise. This assignment and the accom panying standardization are likely to create a normalization of the year. The inherent consequence of this structural repetition and frequency control is the risk of slowing controllers, even less attention between two controls. In addition, the growing use of sophisticated tools is likely to reduce alertness naturally controllers. Therefore, the tasks of responsible control bodies in retail banks (but also in other business activities) involved  the constant mobilization of the staff to maintain their curiosity, to maintain the sense of analysis inherent in any controller responsive and responsible and finally to train controllers and analysts covering the multidisciplinary expertise and business culture of control. Governing institutions should strengthen the banks responsible for the monitoring authorities in these guidelines and provide legitimacy to the realization of these intentions. This is applied in France, where it notes that large institutions have quickly adopted the AMA (Advanced Measurement Method) method for the quantification and management of operational risk. This has not been widespread in the European Union, particularly in the United Kingdom where most of the major players keep the application of the standard method. As seen earlier, banks created new kind of services like e-banking. This comes from a rapid development of e-commerce and the creation of new mechanisms of payment through Internet. Thus, the creation of e-banking permits to all customers to have access anytime to their bank account and manage it by themselves in their home or anywhere in the world through Internet connection without going physically to their bank. The advantage is that there is no direct contact between customers and the bank. Internet is used for three types of Internet banking. Firstly, based on information, customers connect to have information about their account (basic level). The risk is relatively low, because the information systems are not generally connected with the server and the banks internal network. This may be offered by the bank or by an external source. Secondly, it is used to communicate i.e. there in an interaction between the banking system and customers. Interaction may be limited to the corresponding electronic account consulting, applying for loans, changing static information (change of name or address). And finally, the riskier type of using Ebanking is to do transactions. There is a direct connection between the banks internal networks under very strict control. Customer transactions may include: access accounts, pay bills, transfers, etc. For Tanase and ÃÆ'†¦Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¾erbu (2010), it reduces potential losses arising from operational risk. However, customers can do whatever they want and create account via online method without seeing someone which can be more difficult to prevent in case of problems such as identity theft. As a conclusion, it is important to not forget microfinance which i s not in the business lines types. On that type of finance, Tchakoute Tchuigoua (2011) agrees to say that Basel regulation focused on the regulatory approach is adapted to the banking sector but not for microfinance institutions (MFIs). He regrets that nobody cares about MFI and nothing has been proposed regarding a conceptual framework for analyzing operational risk management issues in microfinance institutions. Through organizational architecture and literature on forms of integration of MFIs, provided by organizations theory, operational risk can be regarded as the result of deviant and unethical behavior. MFI are known to be based in developing countries and most of the money used to lend to poor people are from equities. So the Basel regulation cannot fit with MFI because the rules aims are to increase the equities to face problems in case of non-reimbursement or operating risks. However, the first risk is the underestimation of capital which may have fatal consequences for th e lending institution in case of realization of operational risk. The second risk is the overestimation of equities leading to allocate a significant part of resources and to immobilize some part of the capital to cover risks. This is the basic indicator case approach which leads banking organizations to have capital above the regulatory minimum requirement. This supplement includes that the establishment of sustainable finance allow some investment projects to develop and strengthen skills of MFIs. Thus we can hope that soon a new regulation taking care of MFI will be published and adopted. All those types of business lines have their own way to deal with Basel II and all the regulations. However in the main line, some solutions have to be implemented in all those companies. One of the most important solutions that have to be implemented is to prevent operating risks and solve operating losses. A strategy of control has been carried out in the banking system. Three defined st eps of control permit to minimize the financial impact of these risks and improve the performance of companies. This strategy is based on three levels : the first level is the internal control done by direct employees evolving inside the department, then the second level is also the internal control done by indirect employees or managers who evolve inside the department for permanent or temporary controls and the third level is internal audit done by general inspection which is the specific department of banks and external audit done by regulators, states or public organisms. For example, the internal control is done regarding procedures applied by the compliance officer or by employees for the first or second level like managers, the third level for the internal audit where a specialized department checks the operations to ensure that policies and procedures are followed and finally external audits based on an external and independent institutions allowed to check all the steps for the first level to the third and all the documents like the composition of the financial statements. Those three actions are mandatory for all the companies to reduce operational risks and its cost in the financial statement by controlling the tools and the employees applying rules. For further understanding, the highest losses stemming from operational risk have been recorded in Socià ©tà © Gà ©nà ©rale in 2008 ($4.9 billion) due to unauthorized trading by the trader Jerome Kerviel. The amount of loss faced by financial institutions, according to De Fontouvelle (2003), is composed mainly of 100 operational loss events exceeding $100 million since the end of 1980s. First of all to focus on internal controls, for Arnold, Larsen, Hollinger, ODoherty, and Milne (2008), banks did not care about it and it represents a problem. This task is usually done by a spawned allegations of moral hazard and for Chernobai, Jorion, and Yu (2011) the consequences of a weak internal control environment shows the result of events and scandals which makes loss an enormous amount of money. However, for Alberto Balestra (2006), internal control exists and follows the procedures but because of lack of compliance companies makes big losses. Controls are usually done after the main task and are not part of the main task. Besides, if there are some anomalies, researches are not always done further to discover the incident. Secondly, Basel committee agreement defined how banks have to do to manage the internal audit of its operational risk like to create an operational risk management function responsible for codifying firm-level policies and procedures concerning operational risk management and risk-reporting system for operational risk; and for developing strategies to identify. For the GCAP (Global Call to Action Against Poverty) the internal control is defined by checking all the following points : The financial information and operating data are accurate and reliable, t he policies and internal procedures are followed, the business risks of the institution are identified and minimized, resources are used efficiently and economically, the institutions objectives are being achieved and the external regulations are met. J. Cernes agreed to say that Internal audit sees his expanded role, including the control of new skills related to this development. Although for Balestra (2006), the operational risk manager can have difficulties to do it so it has to ask help from rely alson reengineers for this operational auditing. New departments and functions have been created like the Stress test to check if the company can survive to a huge financial loss. They reproduce the Kerviel case and also go further and imagine a worse case, this simulation or the worst case that could happen. From the external point of view of an independent auditor, C. Cox (2008) director of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed that his agency failed to act for nearl y a decade on credible allegations about Bernard Madoff, whose fraudulent internal controls allowed a Ponzi scheme that cost hedge fund investors as much as $50 billion The goal of these auditors is to check the financial statements, records, transactions, and transactions of a structure by an external party to express an opinion on the financial statements of the IMF (International Monetary Fund). However, the impartiality of the controls is not always fair and institutions like supervisory authorities and rating agencies didnt predict the crises and wait that the situation become obvious or even some days after the announcement of social plan to downgrade countries, banks and companies. To conclude, for Leippold and Vanini (2003), the operation risk occurs at low frequency but it has a high impact and mainly it comes from of human behaviors. For Jeffery Atik (2010) Not all risks can be anticipated. Indeed, it is difficult to manage risks that have never been imagined (those tha t are outside of experience). Unfortunately, it occurs by experience that unanticipated and unimagined events do occur in reference to those crises. So we can see the difficulties and limits to understand the impact of the operational risks. Several measures have been taken regarding the past events, especially this last 10 years on the assessment with risk mapping and solutions to prevent and manage it. To bring more data to what has been done, it is important to see on the spot, how banks are facing with and how they are doing the calculation of capital requirements for operational risk using different methods and the difference between themselves to find an adapted management on the financial sector after the recent past events of these last four years. Tell us what you found out what the results of your investigation were and what you think they tell us in relation to the original problem you set out to study and also your knowledge of the area in general.