Significant Improvements in Africa’s Risk Management- Expert
The Chief Risk Officer of Coronation Group Ltd., Ms Chukwunomnso Anyichie, on Wednesday, said risk management had significantly improved within the African continent. Anyichie stated this in an interview in Lagos.
While assessing risk management practices, she offered strategies for enhancing its implementation and compliance across financial institutions in Africa. According to her, many improvements in risk management were largely driven by regulators within the banking, insurance, pensions, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sectors.
“The regulators have continued to roll out risk management frameworks in line with international best practices that operators have to abide by. The service management frameworks, or ISO 31,000 frameworks, have been a basis for the development of risk management frameworks across all our different financial sectors.
“Whether in South Africa, Nigeria, or Kenya, where we have large financial centres, we have had significant implementation around risk management due to financial crises,” she said. Anyichie noted that the SEC recently sent out a circular on the implementation of Enterprise Risk Management Framework Standards, the COSO and the ISO.
The commission now has proper oversight over the risk environment and practices of all capital markets operators. She highlighted that the Coronation Group, within its ecosystem, had already implemented the Enterprise Risk Management Policy and frameworks with board-approved policies.
This, she said, was in compliance with the regulator’s directive and in line with global best practices. Anyichie listed the common risks that financial institutions in Africa face, including credit, market, operational, regulatory, and political risks.
She explained that the top risks in the continent were led by political instability and policy changes that impact the businesses and operations of financial institutions. The political risk is also tied to regulatory risk because the regulators ensure implementation of best practices to improve the economic and financial systems,” she said.
In managing risk, Anyichie advised institutions to ensure controls such as financial control, board oversight, and education, with a synergy of the finance and compliance functions. She also urged financial institutions to build professional relationships with their regulators, as the African culture values such relationships.
Anyichie emphasised the importance of leveraging technology to protect businesses from cyber-attacks and carrying out stress testing to enhance business resilience. She said, “For example, at Coronation, we are forward-looking and have been pushing out lots of initiatives, products, and services to help our customers build wealth.
Hence, we regularly engage our regulators by having conversations, building relationships, and giving them insight into what we are up to and how to meet the requirements before we roll out. For example, we are the first Securities and Exchange Holding Company in Nigeria and got the license last year.#Significant Improvements in Africa’s Risk Management- Expert KDSG, JTB Train North-West Tax Officers on Tax Audit, Compliance, Enforcement
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