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Banks told to carry out internal risk assessments of their staff
A lady withdraws money from a bank. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- Conduct risk is more focused on the corporate culture and ethical behaviour of employees and managers, who could be the source of malfunctioning of perfectly designed controls
The Bank of Uganda has asked commercial banks and other supervised financial institutions to keep undertaking internal assessments of staff regularly to safeguard their institutions from operational risks and bad ethical conduct risks, which always affect and lead to the downfall of an institution.
Speaking during a second training meeting for financial institutions organized by Absa Bank Uganda on the theme ‘building blocks of an ethics program', on October 17, 2023, at Hotel Protea, the executive director of supervision at Bank of Uganda, Dr Tumubweine Twinemanzi asked the bank managers to always conduct internal risk assessment.
“After the Covid-19 outbreak, there has been an upsurge of fraud in the financial institutions, I cannot speculate on how it happens and we don’t know what is causing it but it is silently happening and there are customer complaints. So we as regulators and actors in the industry we must guard against it,” he said.
“Please get it right, conduct risks must be treated separately from operational risks because they affect the organization differently,” he added.
Specific to conduct risks, Dr Twinemanzi warned: “Conduct risks will have a shock on your balance sheet. There are benefits of getting it right while dealing with the two risks and avoiding getting them wrong.”
Conduct risk is more focused on the corporate culture and ethical behaviour of employees and managers, who could be the source of malfunctioning of perfectly designed controls.
Dr Twinemanzi said whereas there is increased fraud and customer complaints; the customers should be reading the customer guide of 2011 to understand their rights.
The managing director of Absa Bank Uganda, Mr Mumba Kenneth Kalifungwa said the training is very important because it is creating a strong ethical culture in Uganda’s banking system.
