Governance, Risk and Compliance

In the after math of the global financial crisis the various risk functions in Banks have increasingly come under fire with stakeholders looking to them for answers in the processes and models used by risk management to monitor, aggregate and report across the broad range of risks in their organisations.

Our specialist teams can assist you with the following in providing these answers:

• Enterprise Risk Management
• Definition and evaluation of the organization’s risk appetite
• Internal control reviews and mappings
• Sarbanes Oxley Readiness Reviews
• Internal audit services

The implementation of Basel II and the anticipated changes that Basel III will bring as a result of the global financial crisis places emphasis on the need for state-of-the art methodologies and processes to ensure appropriate management and measurement of financial risks. Our dedicated quantitative banking and capital markets specialists can assist you throughout the whole model development life cycle including:

• Model design
• Model development
• Model implementation
• Model validation

Our team has a deep understanding with regards to the measurement and management of:

• Credit risk
• Liquidity risk
• Operational risk
• Market risk and financial instrument valuation

The market and regulatory bodies continuously demand access to an increased volume and more reliable financial and non-financial information within shorter time-frames. Highly reliable, readily available, value-adding information to facilitate the efficient and effective decision making is in the order of the day and finance departments are pressured to deliver on these increased demands with the same or fewer resources.

PwC understands these demands and can assist you with the:

• Implementing a streamlined, efficient and more cost-effective close the book process which is capable of generating more reliable and consistent business information giving you a competitive advantage.
• Development of fully analysed year-end results with reconciliation between reporting bases.

Although the frequency of fraud may be low, its reputational impact is high. Fraud remains a high risk, particularly in South Africa, where white-collar crime has increased significantly over the past number of years. Companies are also continuously under increasing pressure to comply with international and local regulations designed to combat market abuse, money laundering, corrupt business practises, and other financial crimes.

Out reputable Fraud Management practice can assist banks with the following:

• Forensic and accounting investigations
• Fraud risk consulting
• Regulatory investigations

King IV™ reinforces the notion that good corporate governance is a holistic and interrelated set of arrangements to be understood and implemented in an integrated manner – good governance is not a tick-box or compliance exercise. 

Link to King IV web page

King III recognises that information technology (IT) has become an integral part of doing business today, as it is fundamental to the support, sustainability and growth of organisations. IT cuts across all aspects, components and processes in business and is therefore not only an operational enabler for a company, but an important strategic asset which can be leveraged to create opportunities and to gain competitive advantage.

PwC has invested substantially in the IT governance solutions both locally and globally. Our methodologies, experience and hands-on expertise ensure that we can accelerate and reduce the cost of your King III IT governance programme.

PwC can support you by:

• Providing an assessment of your current IT governance arrangements against King III and other best practices such as ITIL, CobiT, ISO 38500, ISO 17799, Val IT.
• Supporting you in determining the King III principles to apply within your organisation.
• Developing an IT governance implementation program aligned to King III requirements and implementing the required IT governance improvements.
• Supporting the implementation of improvements in IT governance by utilising PwC's proprietary ICT governance framework and methodologies.

Compliance with laws, rules, codes and standards has always been an explicit statutory/legal requirement. King III stresses the importance of compliance and how, by applying certain principles, the board can demonstrate that it has achieved effective compliance. Out people can help you at the strategic level to maximise competitive advantage from regulation and to embed compliance to these regulations at an operational level to minimise costs and disruptions to your business.

Our range of compliance services includes:

• Advising on the appropriate compliance management framework
• Determination of your compliance universe
• Evaluation of functional compliance
• Advising on what laws and regulations are applicable
• Audit of compliance
• Assessing the effectiveness of the compliance function
• Recommending approaches on how to achieve effective compliance
• Benchmarking the compliance responses to specific acts/regulations - nationally and globally
• Developing specific compliance databases to evidence compliance
• Hosting of compliance databases through our Enterprise Compliance Portal (ECP) - A system that PwC uses to manage its own global compliance requirements.
• Advice on embedding of regulatory compliance in core business processes and systems.