Governing Banks - New Training Material for Bank Board Directors

The Global Corporate Governance Forum released Governing Banks, a new sector-specific curriculum designed to be taught in conjunction with its Board Leadership Training Resources Toolkit.

DOWNLOAD the part 1, Risk Management, and the table of contents.

Governing Banks is a comprehensive module on risk governance and risk management that focuses on the domain-specific expertise required of bank board directors. It drew extensively on the risk management experience of Eastern European banks and financial institutions, particularly risk governance lessons that grew out of policy responses to the global financial crisis.

"Governing Banks is based on an extensive review of literature, international consultations, peer reviews, and interviews with directors, bankers, chief risk officers, regulators, and independent experts, who reflect perspectives from all regions," said Philip Armstrong, the Forum's head. "It builds upon our experience in corporate governance training for board directors and draws upon the Forum’s thought leadership." Topics include:

• Governance of risk management
• Bank's role in the economy
• Risk and the economics of banking
• Bank regulation and oversight
• Risk management and measurement

The supplement is a key milestone in the Forum’s Financial Markets Recovery Project (FMRP) to improve bank directors’ financial risk-governance skills. The project was launched in Indonesia in March 2010 in cooperation with IFC, the Indonesian Institute for Corporate Directorship (IICD), and Perbanas, the Indonesian bank association. Indonesia is part of a phased-in global rollout strategy, with current plans to disseminate Governing Banks to other regions, including further capacity-building work in Eastern Europe.

"Our objective is to help improve bank directors' performance and thereby mitigate and prevent a future crisis like that of the past two years, in which governance failures played a key role," said Gene Spiro, a Forum senior project officer. "The combination of the governance content of our product and its innovative mode of delivery—using the most current adult education techniques—should serve Indonesia’s banking sector well."

In late October, the materials were introduced through a training-of-trainers workshop (ToT) in Indonesia. An intensive bank director training program led by the IICD will follow in Indonesia and other East Asian countries through the Institute of Directors of East Asia (IDEA.net).


Forum's Trainer Mary Jo Larson is talking to participants at the first FMRP ToT.

Perbanas is providing critical support by securing the participation of Indonesia's financial community, including bankers, regulators, financial markets experts, and corporate governance leaders. The Swiss Office for Economic Cooperation is supporting the project.

DOWNLOAD the part 1, Risk Management, and the table of contents. The full set of materials is available only to the trainers who go through the Forum's Board Leadership Training Program.