News & Events

Recent Events

GRI Research: "Low-for-Long" Workshop Series

More

Quantitative Behavioural Finance Conference

On Friday April 5th, Dr. Maila participated in the 2013 Quantitative Behavioural Finance Conference. The conference was hosted by Waterloo Research Institute in Insurance, Securities & Quantitative Finance (WatRISQ) at the University of Waterloo, in collaboration with Nanjing University.

Dr. Maila made a presentation entitled "Management of Emerging Risks: How can Behavioral Finance Contribute?" To view Dr. Maila's presentation, please click HERE

More

GRI Research: "Low-for-Long" Workshop Series #1

On Friday, March 22nd, GRI held it's first workshop in the "Low-for-Long" series. Dr. Peter Dungan from the University of Toronto presented his work on "Risks of a Prolonged Low-Interest-Rate Environtment for the Pensions Sector". 

This research project is twofold; it first uses a traditional macroeconomic model to define plausible interest rate scenarios and then uses them to assess the key risk management issues of the three pillars of the Canadian retirement system: 1) government-administered and funded programs including OAS and GIS; 2) employer-sponsored defined-benefit and defined-contribution plans, including CPP; and 3) individual registered retirement savings plans and funds. The research team will produce insights on the risks that are unique to each of the three pillars, the sustainability of existing programs and recommendations to policy makers. 

More

Panel discussion on monetary policy, liquidity, and counterparty risks

On March 1st, Dr. Michel Maila acted as moderator of a panel discussion held at the Fields Institute. The panel discussed monetary policy, liquidity, and counterparty risks. Other panelists included Ulrich Bindseil (European Central Bank), Rhys Mendes (Bank of Canada), and Angelo Melino (University of Toronto).More

Systemic Risk in the Financial Services Sector: Policy Approaches and Practitioners’ Perspectives

On December 10, 2012, GRI held a major conference on systemic risk in the financial services sector, drawing together over 100 leading private-sector practitioners, policy-makers and academic researchers.

Speakers at the conference included Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, Canadian CEO's Ed Clark, Donald Guloien, Jim Leech and Gord Nixon as well as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Bridgewater Associates' Co-Chief Investment Officer Bob Prince.

The conference was chaired and opened by Paul Cantor, Chair of GRI's Board of Directors, who introduced GRI's Board members and reported on the activities of the Institute in 2012. To view the video of Mr. Cantor's opening remarks, please click HERE.

 Following Mr. Cantor's opening address, GRI President & CEO Michel Maila set the context for the day with his presentation entitled:  "Systemic Risk in Finance: a Special Emerging Risk?" To view the video of Dr. Maila's presentation, please click HERE. 

To view the list of distinguished presenters and learn more about the event, please click HERE.

To view Dr. Maila's full slide presentation, excerpts from which were covered in his address at the conference, please click HERE.

Financial Services International Media Tour

World Congress on Risk 2012

The World Congress on Risk 2012, being held on July 17-20 in Sydney, Australia, focuses on the theme "Risk and Development in a Changing World." 

This is the third in the series of World Congresses on Risk, organized by the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) to further develop the field of risk analysis and its applications worldwide. The theme for 2012, "Risk and Development in a Changing World," invokes the global trend toward better use of risk-based concepts, tools, and processes (derived from both research and practice) in science, decision-making and risk management. 

As part of the program, on Thursday July 19th Dr. Michel Maila, President and CEO of the GRI will participate as Chair of session T3-C Global Financial Risks/Assessing Emerging Risks.

Singapore International Forum on Financial Risk

The Global Risk Institute sponsors an International Forum on Financial Risk in Toronto each year coordinating it with a second risk conference sponsored by a partner in another country. GRI's partner for 2012 is the National University of Singapore.

The Annual Risk Management Conference, organized by the Risk Management Institute at the National University of Singapore, will be held in Singapore from July 12 to 13. This international conference will provide a platform for policy makers, regulators, industry executives, and researchers from academia and industry to discuss recent theoretical developments, analytical techniques and empirical findings on issues related to risk management in the financial sector. The conference is composed of a policy forum and a scientific program.

More

Risk Oversight for Corporate Directors - Addressing Emerging Issues

The Global Risk Institute launched two Risk Oversight workshops designed to engage directors in open discussions on current topics in the risk management of financial services sector organizations.

The first workshop, held on November 3, 2011, included presentations from McKinsey & Company and Capco. The sessions identified important themes concerning unintended consequences of regulatory reform, the need to build and evaluate an organization's risk culture and the growing complexity of risk governance in financial institutions.

The second workshop, held on January 19, 2012, featured remarks by Ms. Julie Dickson, Superintendent of the Office of Supervision of Financial Institutions (OSFI) and Mr. Simon Wong, Professor from Northwestern University School of Law. The sessions dealt with the expectations of boards and board governance practices and behaviours.

International Forum on Financial Risk

Challenges and Responses: Dealing with the Aftermath of the Crisis
Canada's Global Risk Institute in Financial Services, the newly formed public-private partnership between governments and the financial sector dedicated to sound, integrated risk management, sponsored its first International Forum on Financial Risk to explore the question of how do regulators and financial companies deal with the aftermath of the financial crisis. Click to view the Forum Agenda and Speaker Profiles.

Speakers included Dr. Robert Engle, the Recipient of the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, who spoke on "How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis" - that is, detecting and regulating systemic risk. The day-long conference featured experts, thought leaders and leading financial executives from Canada's financial community. A centrepiece panel on “Challenges Posed by Regulation” was chaired by Leon Bloom, leader of Deloitte’s Global Capital Markets & Regulatory Practice, and featured Jim Leech, the CEO of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Morton Friis, the Chief Risk Officer at the Royal Bank.

Presentations are available below: 

Ratings. Arbitrage and Structured Products - Dr. John Hull, University of Toronto
Why did some banks perform better during the credit crisis? - Dr. René M. Stulz, Ohio State University
Credit Rating Reform - Dr. Jin-Chuan Duan, National University of Singapore
Multiperiod Corporate Default Prediction - Dr. Jin-Chuan Duan, National University of Singapore
Introducing Professor Robert F. Engle - Peter Christoffersen, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis - Dr. Robert Engle - 2003 Nobel Laureate in Economics, New York University
The Known, the Unknown and the Unknowable - Dr. Neil Doherty, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania
Risk as Viruses - Dr. Vikas Mehrotra, University of Alberta
Risk Literacy as a Defense Against Contagion - Philippe Sarfati, CRO - Coast Capital Savings
Measuring Tail Risk: Implications for Bank Capital Regulation - Dr. Christopher James, University of Florida

Chief Risk Officers Forum - Inaugural Dinner

A dinner was held for the inaugural meeting of Chief Risk Officers from Canada's largest financial institutions in banking, pension funds, insurance and investment funds. This initiative launched by the Global Risk Institute a seeks to create a forum for the open exchange of ideas, concerns and issues among this select cross-sector group of Chief Risk Officers with conversations being initiated by visiting experts and luminaries. This inaugural evening's provocative speaker, Malcolm Knight - Vice-Chairman of Deutsche Bank Group USA, spoke of the international harmonization of global reform and how each jurisdiction should establish a financial system risk regulator to identify systemically-important financial institutions, mitigate system- wide risks, and intervene in troubled institutions to limit moral hazard while ensuring continuity of crucial functions.

Inaugural Round Table: Creating the Research Agenda

The first of a series of round table workshops to identify risk issues in the financial services sector and shape the research agenda of the Global Risk Institute was held. Timothy Hodgson, Special Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Canada gave the keynote address on “New International Organizations to Manage Financial Risk”.

The Institute is creating a Research Advisory Council to guide the thinking and decisions of its Board of Directors as it allocates resources to investigate a few of the many challenges facing the financial services sector. This downloadable report is a summary of the round table discussions on the Risk Issues in Financial Services and describes a first step towards creating the research agenda.

Global Financial Stability: Still at Risk

José Viñals, Financial Counselor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund, spoke about global financial stability focusing on government debt levels, capital inflows and monetary policy.

Intelligent Risk Management: Rescue, Reform and Realization

Tiff Macklem, Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, discussed the global situation and Canada’s role as a thought leader.