Operational Risk in Financial Institutions for Managers

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Most of the big losses in financial services don't come from a bad bet on the market. They come from a process that failed, a system that went down, or a person who made a mistake. That is operational risk, and if you manage people, processes or systems in a financial firm, you are already managing it.

This course is for managers: heads of business lines and operations, product owners, finance and IT managers, new board and committee members, and anyone stepping up into a management role in a bank, investment firm, insurer, payment or crypto-asset firm. You don't need a risk background.

By the end, you will be able to spot operational risk in your own area before it turns into a loss, know what you own and what the risk function and internal audit do, read a risk report or heat map and ask the right questions, and lead your team through an incident so that the real cause gets fixed.

The course has five modules: why operational risk matters; governance, frameworks and risk appetite; identifying and assessing risk; early warnings, incidents and learning; and operational risk across the life of a transaction, from onboarding to settlement and custody.  A 60-page course manual is included.

It is global, anchored on international standards (Basel Committee, FSB, IOSCO, ISO), with real cases from banks, investment firms, payment and crypto-asset firms. You follow one fictional firm, Halbury Group, through a difficult year. You also get 21 downloadable checklists and templates, and ten short quizzes to check your thinking.

Your instructor, Vlad Karols, is a Certified Internal Auditor who leads compliance in regulated crypto-asset and e-money firms.

AI disclosure: some lectures are presented by an AI avatar of the instructor, and the Halbury characters are fictional and AI-generated.