Gulf Bank continues to drive bank-wide operational risk reduction and efficiency

KUWAIT: As part of its ongoing commitment mitigating and preventing operational risk, Gulf Bank concluded another session in its series of trainings for a wide cross section of senior management. The training session, entitled “Internal Control Enhancement: Management Responsibility, Culture, and Oversight” was conducted by Fitch Learning at the JW Marriott hotel.

The one-day training session highlighted key aspects of sound internal controls, as well as regulatory and management oversight. During the training, the causes and impact of operational risk were discussed, as well as strategies for combatting it, in addition to the importance of building an operational risk culture bank-wide.

Salma Al-Hajjaj, General Manager of Human Resources at Gulf Bank commented on the session saying: “Gulf Bank’s positive record of growth is sustained and accelerated by its prudent policies and procedures and a strong adherence to risk controls. In order to achieve this success, we place high value on empowering our staff and as such are pleased to have offered this training to increase our team’s awareness of possible threats to Gulf Bank’s mandate, and to focus on sound international control practices to further align the organization’s operational risk awareness culture. We were happy with the active participation of our staff who shared specific viewpoints from their departments on how best to continue building an effective operational risk culture framework.”

Raghunandan Menon, Chief Risk Officer and General Manager of Risk Management at Gulf Bank added: “Ensuring compliance with the Central Bank of Kuwait’s standards and reducing the risk of internal control lapses are top priorities for Gulf Bank. Our internal controls aim to protect our assets and the integrity of our banking processes based on international standards of risk controls. The results of the session included additional approaches to reducing risk and better empowering executive to mitigate future risks.”

The one-day training session delivered by Fitch Learning will foreseeably support the bank’s growth in the upcoming period, whilst taking into consideration current and future risks in the banking environment. Fitch Learning is part of Fitch Group and is a platform that provides knowledge and skills training. Fitch Group is a global leader in financial information services with operation in more than 30 countries.