Mirea Raaijmakers, former Global Head, Behavioural Risk Management, ING

Below is an insight into what can be expected from Mirea’s  session at Risk EMEA 2023.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of he thought leader as an individual, and are not attributed to CeFPro or any particular organization.

1. Why is it important to create the correct behavior within a financial institution?

Human behavior can lead us to ‘above and beyond’ performance, ground-breaking innovations and deeply felt connections between people. But it can also get us into trouble. With the recent developments in the banking landscape – the fall of Credit Suisse and Silicon Vally Bank – we see that leadership behavior impacts financial performance, reputation & integrity and its licence to operate. It impacts the stability of the financial system and many stakeholders, such as employees, clients, investors and regulators. Of course, culture isn’t the sole root cause or explanation for what happened, but deciding to run a bank without a Chief Risk Officer for a considerable amount of time (SVB) and a culture of “the bank seems to have remained firmly rooted in traditional (and outdated) concepts of Swiss bank secrecy that prioritize wealth concealment, anonymity and tax avoidance.”[1] (CS) tell us leadership behavior is part of the problem.

[1] See for example https://www.omfif.org/2023/03/credit-suisse-a-failure-of-regulatory-culture and https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/spies-lies-chairmans-exit-credit-suisses-scandals-2022-01-17