In search of a perfect head shot for our author profile picture. Apparently a good head shot makes for above average book sales. When you have packaged a book well with the right content, the right presentation and the right look and a potential buyer picks it up, he or she ultimately turns over to the [...]
Dubai short stopovers – 48 hour food fest tips Over the years I have made a list of must have short stopovers for food that I need to do whenever I make it to Dubai with my better half or a member of close family. Figure 1 PQ – The Belgian organic breakfast place This weekend, the long [...]
ALM for Board and ALCO members – 7 posts in 60 minutes. I have long felt a need a for a high level overview course on Asset Liability Management (ALM) for board members, executive committee and ALCO teams. A course that focuses in equal measure on high level concepts behind Asset Liability Management and basic [...]
NII Earnings, positive and negative gap, asset and liability sensitivity. In our previous post we encountered the curious case of interest rates rising across the board yet witnessing a decline in net interest income (NII) using our NII reporting template. In this post we review the drivers that lead to such a scenario. We [...]
Bank ALM Analysis – Earnings versus Economic Value. The two elements used within bank ALM analysis are economic value and earnings. Why is earning emphasized more than value? What is wrong with value analysis? In the ALM world we use two tools to illustrate the impact of interest rate changes. a) Rate or reset gap focusing on [...]
Bank Asset Liability Management – Study Guide – 3rd Edition. The brand new, revised 3rd edition of the ALM Study Guide is out. With 177 pages, 189 figures and illustrations, the new edition weighs in at thrice the size of the 2nd edition and spends more time on building a stronger foundation for [...]
Telenor data plans on 3G phones – bandwidth speed tests. Two days ago, on a Saturday morning, our 2 MB hard-line optic fiber connection died. Since I had to send an urgent email out I took out my trusted phone and plugged in the USB cable to use the tether mode on my Nexus 5. Within [...]
Drive by shooting at Lake Victoria with Canon 70D Last week work related travel led me to Entebbe airport and the breath taking landing and take off at Lake Victoria. Unfortunately work didn’t leave any time at all for sight seeing so the only opportunity I had to capture the scenic lake was on my [...]
Operational Risk Management under Basel accord Operational Risk (OR) is the risk of direct and indirect loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems or from external events. This definition includes legal risk but ex...
Why do we need Asset Liability Management (ALM)? Banks make money in a variety of ways. The simplest of ways is to act as an intermediary on transactions (such as buying and selling foreign exchange, equities, bonds and other financial securities) and take a small cut on both ends of the transaction (buying and selling). So [...]