Risk Management for Banking and Insurance: Then, Now and Tomorrow

Prof Paul-Embrechts

Professor of Mathematics
ETH Zurich

About the Speaker

Paul Embrechts is Professor of Mathematics at the ETH Zurich specialising in Actuarial Mathematics and Quantitative Risk Management.

Previous academic positions include the Universities of Leuven, Limburg and London (Imperial College). Dr. Embrechts has held visiting professorships at numerous universities and has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waterloo, the Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and the Université Catholique de Louvain. He is an Elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the American Statistical Association, Honorary Fellow of the Institute and the Faculty of Actuaries, UK, and Institut des Actuaires, France and Member Honoris Causa of the Belgian Institute of Actuaries. He belongs to various national and international research and academic advisory committees.

He co-authored the influential books "Modelling of Extremal Events for Insurance and Finance", Springer, 1997, and "Quantitative Risk Management: Concepts, Techniques and Tools", Princeton University Press, 2005 and 2015.

Dr. Embrechts consults on issues in Quantitative Risk Management for financial institutions, insurance companies and international regulatory authorities.

About the Seminar

Financial institutions in insurance and banking find themselves in constant search for a balance between the various stakeholders involved. In this talk I will mainly look at this "search for balance" between a company and the relevant regulators.

First of all (THEN) I will give a historic overview of ideas in the realm of finance and insurance that have helped to shape modern financial and insurance markets. Following this short overview, I will discuss how various regulatory regimes, like Basel I/II/III and Solvency I/II have until now reacted to these market developments (NOW).

In particular, I will be critical about some of the shortcomings of the current regulatory frameworks in place. In the final part I will give my personal view on the risk management challenges facing the world of insurance and banking going forward (TOMORROW).