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The latest risk management, resilience, audit, governance and compliance news from InConsult.

 

 

February 2012

Risk Management

Global Risks 2012 Seventh Edition: Landscapes depict potential impact and likelihood of global risks over the next 10 years, as rated on a 1 to 5 scale by respondents of the Global Risks Survey.

Source: oliverwynan.com

The Inter-Relationships of Risk, Objectives, Strategy and Performance: Every so often, I read an article or guidance that talks about risk and strategy, risk and achieving objectives, or risk and performance management.

Source: sustainablebusinessforum.com

What to Put on Your Risk Radar Screen: IT security, global expansion, and excess cash top the list of 10 risks companies should be particularly concerned about in 2012.  

Source: cfo.com

Very Big, Yet Hard to See: While the financial crisis has given companies plenty of motivation to expand their risk-management practices, very few executives lose sleep over the constantly changing predilections of three-year-old children. 

Source: cfo.com

What is Your Risk Assessment Worth?: The risk assessment provides an organization with a tool to determine how, where and how much to invest in controls and security over technology.

Source: cutimes.com

Risk Factors: Time for a Tune-Up: Preparing the annual report is a significant effort that consumes many people’s time throughout a company. One section — risk factors — is particularly important but often neglected outside the legal department.

Source: cfo.com

New RIMS President Luthi sets agenda: Those guiding principles come from work the board of New York-based RIMS has been doing during the past year and a half to refocus the society's approach to meeting its mission of advancing risk management and RIMS members' success.

Source: businessinsurance.com

 

Emergency Risk Management

Govt launches emergency payment tech:  The new IT system, tested during last summer's Queensland floods, will mean that the Federal Government can deliver emergency payments from almost any location.

Source: zdnet.com.au

Legal confusion leads to unnecessary death:  In an earlier post I mentioned that three UK incident controllers were being prosecuted over the deaths of four firefighters.

Source: worldpress.com

New ISO standard provides incident response guidance:  ISO has announced the availability of a new disaster management standard, ISO 22320:2011.

Source: continuitycentral.com

Flood risk and insurance: A roadmap to 2013 and beyond:  Insurance plays a key role in flood risk management. The Government has an agreement with the insurance industry, called the ‘Statement of Principles’, that commits insurers to continue to offer insurance to existing customers where they are at significant risk and where the Environment Agency has announced plans...

Source: defra.gov.uk

Seven key considerations when evaluating emergency and mass notification systems:  The calendar has closed on what many are calling the ‘Year of Disasters.’ The United States set a record with 12 separate billion dollar weather/climate disasters in 2011, with an aggregate damage total of approximately $52 billion, according to NOAA.

Source: continuitycentral.com

 

Governance & Compliance

Refounding Good Governance: Our purpose is to examine the choices that organizations can make in designing governance systems and the impact those choices have on executive decision-making and the organization’s performance.

Source: nytimes.com

 

Financial Services

Fed Compels Banks to Follow Tougher Risk Management Rules: The Federal Reserve sought to curb the threat of financial turmoil by compelling the biggest banks to follow a tougher standard for risk management and demanding stricter oversight by companies' boards of directors.

Source: businessweek.com

Risk and the Road Ahead: To cope with market volatility and heightened regulatory pressure, bank boards must play a much more proactive role in risk management.

Source: novantas.com

View from the Top: The Eurozone crisis is an enterprise risk issue: The Eurozone crisis and its potential impact on the insurance industry are an enterprise issue for risk managers and commercial customers - and not solely the domain of finance managers.

Source: insuranceinsight.eu

 

Occ Health, Safety & Environment

The business of OHS disharmony:  We can now say that the Gillard government’s attempt to harmonise Australia’s occupational health and safety laws appears destined for failure. The latest setback for Gillard is Queensland, the only state that has passed the model OHS laws in full.

Source: businessspectator.com.au

Harmonised WHS - Compilation of legislative instruments:  The harmonised Work Health and Safety (WHS) legislation is set to commence in five out of nine jurisdictions from 1 January 2012. 

Source: nsca.org.au

Grieving mother calls for mine safety:  The mother of a young man who died in a West Australian gold mine accident has called on miners to raise the bar on safety and ensure her son's death was not in vain.

Source: smh.com.au

Workplace bullying code slammed by employers:  A leading business group has criticised a draft code of practice on workplace bullying, claiming small businesses will be unable to introduce some of its proposals.

Source: startupsmart.com.au

 

Financial Management

Why (and How) to Stress-Test:  In recent years, stress testing has become more important, fuelled by regulatory requirements and the weakened economic environment.

Source: cfo.com

Risk management to be key function for CFOs in 2012:  SINGAPORE: Chief financial officers have traditionally been seen as guardians for companies, and this role takes on a special significance in times of crisis.
Source: channelnewsasia.com

Can we help?            

If you have any risk management, governance, internal audit or business continuity matters you would like to discuss, contact InConsult on 02 9241 1344 or email your query to info@inconsult.com.au

Risk Management Technology

GuardianERM.net releases latest version – v.6.1! Highlights include:

§  A number of enhancements to Risk Profiler and Extended Heat Map

§  New Attestation function

§  Configurable Residual Risk rounding

§  Incident management module enhancements

§  New Breach Form

§  New Issues Log

§  A number of new reports and enhancements have been made to the Incident Management Function.

GuardianERM.net is a web-based Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) system that allows people across an organisation to better collaborate, streamline processes and integrate risk, control, audit and incident data to manage risk and improve resilience. It supports best practice standards including AS/NZS ISO 31000, AS 8000, AS 3806, HB 292, ISO 9000.   If you would like to find out how guardian can help you better sustain your risk management framework, click here or contact InConsult to arrange a demonstration or trial.

 

Upcoming Training

16 February 2012

GIPA in Practice (half-day) The Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA) has come into effect. The new Act will have a significant impact on the way in which NSW Government agencies provide public access to government information…more

5 March  2012

Introductory Risk Management (one-day) This down-to-earth and ‘entertaining’ training program helps to ensure that all people involved in risk management activities in your organisation understand the key concepts of risk management (using ISO 31000), internal control and audit.  This full day course includes an 8 chapter Introductory Risk Management workbook, case studies, a certificate of attainment and 6 hours CPE points can be claimed…more

 

Fraud Risk

Payments fraud hit $220m:  CREDIT and debit card fraud rose to $221 million in the past financial year, up from $184m a year earlier.

Source: theaustralian.com.au

Why Romanians specialise in ATM skimming:  Two Romanian men appeared in Balmain Local Court, charged with offences related to ATM skimming.

Source: smh.com.au

SEC charges ex-Fannie, Freddie CEOs with fraud:  The Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil fraud charges against six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they misled investors about risky subprime loans the that mortgage giants held when the housing bubble burst.

Source: businessweek.com

German court finds six guilty in CO2 fraud trial: A German court sentenced six men to jail terms of between three years and seven years and 10 months in a trial involving evasion of taxes on carbon permits.

Source: climatespectator.com.au

Citibank failed to act on Puri scam warning signals, says probe report: The Rs 400-crore fraud unearthed in Citbank's Gurgaon branch could have been averted if the bank staff had taken the warning signals seriously, according to an internal investigation carried out by the bank.

Source: indiatimes.com

Where There's Smoke, There's Fraud: As a convicted felon, Sam E. Antar, the former CFO for the now-defunct consumer-electronics chain Crazy Eddie, no doubt has regrets. Among them: he is no longer in the game at a time when corporate fraud is experiencing a resurgence. "If I were out of retirement today, I'd be bigger than Bernie Madoff," he boasts.

Source: cfo.com

Lessons Learned from the Frauds of 2011: Let’s leave wrap-ups of the most joyous highlights of 2011 to other publications such as lifestyle and entertainment magazines.

Source: cfo.com

Fraud Management Health Check

No organisation can assume that its safeguards against fraud are adequate…you need to know the gaps. Our Fraud Management Health Check is a structured, independent review of your fraud management framework to help provide you peace of mind. If you would like to find out more click here

 

Business Continuity and Resilience

The six ‘gotchas’ of disaster recovery: It is no surprise that disaster preparation is top of mind among people these days.

Source: continuitycentral.com

Global business continuity concerns are driven by IT and Internet vulnerabilities in 2012: Dominating the horizon scanning of business continuity professionals around the world are threats arising from IT, telecom and Internet dependencies.

Source: bcfiles.com

 

Internal Audit

Should the head of the internal audit function also direct the risk management program?: For a number of reasons, management at several companies have asked the head of internal audit (CAE) to start up and manage their risk management program...

Source: wordpress.com

Continuous Auditing = Continuous Improvement: In recent years, challenges concerning automation, technology risk and operational improvements were often put on the backburner as organizations responded to an all-hands-on-deck need to address Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance requirements.

Source: corporatecomplianceinsights.com

New IPPF Practice Guide Released: Reliance by Internal Audit on Other Assurance Providers: The IIA’s International Professional Practices Framework (IPPF) has released a new practice guide entitled “RELIANCE BY INTERNAL AUDIT ON OTHER ASSURANCE PROVIDERS.”

Source: coso.org

Internal Auditors: A Call to Action: One thing I've always loved about the internal audit profession is that it's constantly changing and evolving.

Source: bankinfosecurity.com

 

 

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