Agenda 2023
Agenda
Risk South Africa 2023 - Agenda
09:30 – 10:00
Market overview: How has the current Geopolitical state impacted the South African Financial Markets?
- From the War in Ukraine to the impact of rising energy prices and the threat of a global recession, how can the South African market mitigate against an economic downturn?
- Examining some of the key actions likely to be taken by South African regulators to get ahead of inflation and avoid a significant narrowing of the interest rate differential between South Africa and key trading partners
- How might volatile commodities markets offer some advantage to South African producers? Can recent international price hikes truly help to cut national debt?
10:00 – 10:45
An update on RFR reform: Are all regulated firms ready for the change?
Sponsored by:
- With many details of the change still uncertain, how can risk managers better understand the shift from IBORs and how this will affect the South African market in the lead up to the 2024 deadline?
- Can JIBAR really cease in the next two years? What are the implications of the new benchmark, ZARONIA, on new and existing ZAR loans?
- How will credit risk be affected?
Ashley is a Director and Head of the RiskLab at Riskworx, South Africa’s leading financial engineering focussed consultancy. He has 20 years experience consulting in the areas of quantitative finance and risk management with a particular focus on capital markets. He has played a meaningful role in risk and regulatory compliance at all of South Africa’s top-tier banks, as well as several of the country’s largest non-bank financial institutions.
Didier joined Murex 16 years ago. He spent 7 years as an Interest Rates Derivatives (IRD) consultant, working with numerous European and international financial institutions, and developing his interest and expertise in this field.
He then joined the product development division and led the IRD practice until 2014. In this role, he oversaw the transformation of the rates solutions following the financial crisis, introducing new features for multi-curves, clearing, OIS discounting and negative rates management in the MX.3 platform. Didier has been in charge of the evolution of Murex’s rates and credit solutions, as well as curve and volatility analytics, since 2016.
In 2018, he was appointed co-head of the Murex IBOR discontinuation taskforce, responsible for the design and development of the Murex IBOR discontinuation solution. Didier is a computer science and financial mathematics engineering graduate from the National School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (Ensimag) in Grenoble, France.
Obeid Mahomed
Convenor and lecturer
African Institute of Financial Markets and Risk Management (AIFMRM)
Obeid lectures on both the MCom in Risk Management of Financial Markets and the MPhil in Mathematical Finance degrees, which are offered by AIFMRM at the University of Cape Town. Currently, he is also the convenor of the MCom degree. Prior to this, he was employed on a full-time basis within the financial sector, and gained extensive exposure to banking, asset management, insurance, and sell-side broking. Obeid's roles evolved from quantitative analyst to head of quantitative research within the investment and stockbroking industries, and he then moved on to become senior risk manager at one of South Africa’s largest banks. His research focuses on quantitative finance and risk management with a particular focus on interest rate modelling at present. Accordingly, last year he was invited to contribute to the South African Reserve Bank’s Market Practitioners Group which is mandated to provide technical guidance on reference rate reform in South Africa.
Paul is responsible for funding and liquidity management for SBSA including, accessing local and international loan and capital markets, long and short-term funding, and intraday liquidity and cash management. He manages treasury portfolio and risk management functions. In addition, Paul manages the Money Markets Franchise business in CIB including client deposits and short-term market-based funding requirements across corporate, public sector and non-bank financial institutions. Paul represents Standard Bank at various industry forums focused on market development. Paul is a qualified Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Accountant (CA(SA)) and has a completed a B. Bus Sci (Hons) qualification from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
Ivan Ruscic works in the Treasury for FirstRand Bank focusing on liquidity strategy, HQLA optimization and transfer pricing. With over 20 years’ experience in market risk, financial engineering, and liquidity risk, his passion is measuring, mitigating, and pricing for risks. He is extensively involved in the group’s LIBOR transition and is currently participating in the MPG sub-workstreams focusing on recommendations for the development of derivative, bond and loan markets referencing ZARONIA.
10:45 – 11:00
Session Q&A
11:00 – 12:00
Networking coffee break
12:00 – 12:45
Examining the role OTC derivatives play in the South African financial markets
- A brief outline of the regulatory framework that supports the OTC derivative market in South Africa
- Can current regulations effectively manage counterparty risk concerns?
- How are products affected the current global economic climate?
Alex Comninos is the Head of Post Trade Operations at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). He joined the JSE in March 2006. The Post Trade Operations team is responsible for clearing and settlement in the Equity, Bond and Derivative markets. Alex is currently also care-taking the Risk team responsible for CCP risk management for JSE Clear and risk management in the Cash Equity and Bond ETP markets.
His career spans more than 19 years’ in various roles in the capital markets industry. Prior to joining the JSE, Alex worked at Merrill Lynch (Johannesburg) and Commerzbank (London and Frankfurt).
Alex is a member of the South African Securities Lending Association (SASLA) Exco.
His qualifications include: BSc (Eng), MBA, Diploma in Datametrics and Investment Management Certificate (UK Society of Investment Professionals).
12:45 – 14:30
Networking lunch
14:30 – 15:15
The future of ESG in Banks: Risks and Opportunities
Sponsored by:
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues as well as their associated opportunities and risks are becoming more and more relevant for financial institutions. In this session we explore how Banks are responding to ESG risk through evolving strategy and products, data management, governance, ESG risk management, reporting and disclosure.
Ulrich leads the Financial Risk Management practise for KPMG in South Africa. He has more than 15 years of experience in the field of quantitative financial risk management modelling with a focus on the design, development and implementation of credit risk models, both for regulatory and business purposes.
Prior to joining KPMG South Africa, he worked for the Financial Risk Management department of KPMG Belgium and KPMG Italy and also has extensive experience assisting some of the largest French and German financial institutions.
15:15 – 15:45
An economic review and preview: focusing on inflation globally and domestically, and the high inflation low growth macro environment for South Africa
- Economic review and preview, South Africa’s high inflation low growth environment and the real economy
- Is load shedding the only major factor in contributing to low growth
- SA politics, greylisting, credit ratings and the global environment
<p>Annabel Bishop is Investec Bank Limited's Chief Economist in South Africa. She joined Investec in 2001 and has worked in the macroeconomic and econometric field for 20 years. Annabel is the holder of the Sake/Beeld Economist of the Year title for 2010 and has won numerous monthly Reuters Econometer awards for correctly forecasting a range of economic variables. She has authored a wide range of in-house and external articles, published both abroad and in South Africa.</p>
<p>Before joining Investec, Annabel was the Economic Analyst at Econometrix, providing key macroeconomic research and specific project work to a variety of clients across the economy, as well running the firm's econometric model. She holds a cum laude master's degree in economics and econometrics from the University of Pietermaritzburg in South Africa.</p>
<p> </p>
15:45 – 18:00