Autumn
2006 Training Course/Seminar Series
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Information Technology Management For Central Bankers And Supervisors
4-day intensive residential programme, 12 - 15 September
2006
Venue: King’s College, Cambridge University
Course Director: Roy Laverick, Banking Consultant, Glendale Consulting
Course Adviser: Charles Goodhart, CBE, Professor Emeritus, London School
of Economics, Consulting Financial Markets Group
Details of how to register
are here
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT FOR CENTRAL BANKERS AND SUPERVISORS
This seminar addresses the two most important technology challenges faced by all central banks and financial market authorities. First, how the IT function can be managed to deliver most effectively the potential benefits of robust and appropriate technology. Second, how to ensure that, as core central bank/regulatory agency functions become more and more dependent on technology, concurrent security and operational risks are managed and mitigated.
These interlinking issues have implications for budgets, training, contingency planning, risk management and the organisation of the whole institution. Throughout the seminar, these questions will be reviewed through case studies, examining how large and small central banks and regulators have, in practice, dealt with these issues.
Sessions are led by an international group of experts including: Jim Etherington, deputy secretary general at the Bank for International Settlements (and former head of IT at the European Central Bank); Bill Barouski, senior vice president, customer relations & support office, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Sean Mahon, vice president of information security, Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Dr James Backhouse, from the London School of Economics; and Paul Willmott, partner with McKinsey and Company.
The seminar meets in roundtable format to allow an international group of delegates maximum opportunities to learn from each other.
Each session of the seminar allows participating supervisors and central bankers an opportunity to “benchmark” their work against best practice internationally and to exchange views with their peers in an informal setting.
Participants learn from “tried and tested” solutions developed in other jurisdictions. Of course, policy solutions have to be adapted to specific circumstances and financial/banking systems. There is no room for “one size fits all” solutions. But equally, there is no excuse for delay or inaction.
Since 1999, over 1,000 supervisors and central bankers have attended roundtable seminars hosted by Central Banking Publications Ltd, publishers of Central Banking journal.
For more information about the programme, please take a few moments to look at the detailed course contents presented on the pages which follow.
I look forward to welcoming you to King’s College, Cambridge.
Yours sincerely,
William Clarke,
CBE, PhD Chairman
The challenge
of recent developments in IT for central banks’ IT function
Jim
Etherington
Deputy Secretary General, Bank for International Settlements
Central banks and financial regulatory
agencies’ public policy mandates impose special demands on the
information technology infrastructure which supports them. Security
and reliability considerations must be addressed within the context
of tight budget constraints. IT managers must lead the adoption of beneficial
technologies, while also addressing demands of users. When new projects
are planned they must choose whether to “buy or build” and
judge whether standard commercial software can be customised cost-effectively.
This session examines how some leading central banks have approached
these trade-offs.
Key challenges in using technology effectively
Roundtable workshop led by
Roy Laverick
Chairman
This workshop builds on the experiences
of participants in their home institutions. Delegates will be expected
to give a short account of their institution’s use of technology,
and the key outstanding issues which they face. Delegates will each
introduce themselves, and speak briefly on their main challenges and
their experiences in tackling them. Through discussion, delegates will
have an opportunity to benefit from each other’s expertise and
experience.
Performance
measurement
Ilkka Vasara
Advisor, IT Quality and Security,
Bank of Finland
Measuring the performance of
the IT department is tricky. IT managers must choose between competing
standards and methodologies and decide which can best be adapted to the
particularities of the central banking environment. The COBIT framework
of best practices, which provides control objectives and performance indicators
for IT managers, is becoming increasingly popular among central banks.
This session examines how performance measurement of IT functions can
work in a central bank, using a case study on the Bank of Finland. This
will include an assessment of the bank’s IT balanced scorecard and
the recent revision of IT strategy and governance in line with best practices.
Delegates will be expected to discuss which metrics are used in their
own institution. The session will also examine how day-to-day service
quality management can run hand-in-hand with implementation of new technologies
and systems.
IT governance
Speaker to be confirmed
All organisations must have some
level of IT governance in order to ensure effective oversight of the technology
function. IT governance arrangements must set out how major IT projects
are prioritised, their costs controlled, and how problems are identified
and managed. Precisely how these oversight and management systems should
work within a central bank is becoming a highly topical subject of debate.
HR for effective IT in a central
bank
Sue Milton
Bank of England
As central banks and regulatory authorities rely increasingly
on technology, the number of staff devoted to the function grows correspondingly.
Making the IT function successful depends critically on how the human
resources of the IT department are managed. Specialists must keep their
skills up to date, and the user base must be given sufficient training
to be able to get the most out of new systems. Meanwhile, private sector
firms are all to keen to poach trained staff. Necessarily, effective IT
requires a strategic approach towards these human resource issues. Above
all, IT investments and strategy must be undertaken in the light of a
realistic assessment of the current and future staffing environment. The
session explores these issues drawing on the recent experience of the
Bank of England.
Aligning IT with business needs
Syndicate group workshops
Roy
Laverick
Chairman
Typically, IT departments
are continually pulled in different directions. On the one hand they must
devise technology solutions to business needs; on the other they must
ensure that best practice and an appropriate overall IT strategy is followed.
Alignment of IT priorities, with those of the organisation as a whole,
is taxing. Particularly when, as now, so many central banks are renewing
their strategic priorities. In these circumstances, how can central banks
ensure an effective “partnership for success” between IT specialists
and business units? Renewed focus on IT governance plays a part. In this
session, delegates will separate into syndicate groups to examine how
different central banks have approached this challenge.
Formulating
IT security policy
James
Backhouse
Information Systems Integrity
Group, London School of Economics
Central bank IT security: current threats and how to combat them
Sean Mahon
Vice President of Information Security, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
The New York Fed is at the heart of the Federal Reserve’s information security framework and hosts the National Information Response Team for the entire Federal Reserve System. In this capacity, the New York Fed recently achieved ISO 27001:2005 certification, the first North American organisation to be certified under this standard. This session draws on the experience of the speaker to examine the most pressing current threats which central banks should be aware of in the area of information security. In addition the speaker will draw on the New York Fed’s experience of managing security across the Federal Reserve System to examine how central banks can keep abreast of these threats.
Information Security in a Web-Based Payments World
William A. Barouski
Senior Vice President, Customer Relations & Support Office,
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Electronic commerce and banking are expanding rapidly as technologies for processing, analyzing and transacting payments continue to grow. Learn about how the growing use of the Internet for payment delivery is driving change, and what security and reliability issues there changes present. Explore how technology and organizational policies and procedures combine to protect highly confidential payments data. Review a case study on modernizing central bank payment channels and the attendant high value payment systems.
Contingency planning for central bank IT
Morris Tutty
Information Systems & Technology Division, Bank of England
As operators of national payment systems, and as key players in financial markets, central banks have long understood the need for contingency planning to ensure that critical systems can continue to operate in all conditions. This session examines some of the key elements of a contingency planning strategy, including how to balance the financial cost of contingency provisions and the losses associated with the contingency materialising. Also addressed is the methodology for identifying acceptable system “down time” before alternative provisions must be made available and the methodology for identifying the level of service which is acceptable when a contingency situation arises.
Implementing
ITIL
Speaker from the European Central Bank
The Information Technology Infrastructure
Library (ITIL) is an increasingly widely accepted industry framework which
adopts a process-driven approach to improving IT support and service delivery
processes. Many central banks are turning to ITIL to provide improved
availability, reliability and security of IT services and increased IT
project delivery efficiencies. However, the ITIL framework only provides
the guidance on process structure, leaving CIOs to manage ITIL deployment
themselves. Such projects should not be taken lightly. They encompass
organisational, process and technology elements. Drawing on an implementation
case study, this session examines how central banks and supervisory agencies
can use and implement ITIL with confidence.
Enterprise content management in a
central bank
Simon Mills
Senior Manager, Information Management,
Bank of England
As policymaking institutions, central
bank staff are archetypal knowledge workers. They rely on technology for
capturing, managing, storing, preserving and synthesising information.
Despite this, few central banks have successfully implemented enterprise
content management (ECM) tools. User conservatism is undoubtedly an issue.
However as email servers overflow, the need for effective document and
records management systems becomes overwhelming. How can IT departments
help users to explore and analyse these huge volumes of data? This session
draws on the experience of the Bank of England in successfully implementing
an ECM solution to examine this critical issue.
IT leadership not IT governance
Paul Willmott
Partner, McKinsey and Company
In order to ensure that IT strategy is closely aligned
with institutional goals most central banks have adopted to some extent
formalised IT governance procedures. Governance processes alone, however,
are not sufficient to guarantee effective IT investment and strategy.
Organisations need strong IT leaders much more than IT governance structures.
Too much focus on tightening governance procedures can leave managers
disaffected rather than energised. Successful technology requires trusted,
credible leaders who can articulate a vision for IT’s role in an
organisation, who can address issues that governance misses and who are
accountable. This session explores the underrated importance of leadership
in the IT function.
Electronic reporting for financial
supervision and statistics
Speaker to be confirmed
Financial supervision and statistics are data-intensive
functions which require extensive cooperation with private sector firms.
Increasingly, national financial authorities are looking to collect this
data electronically from reporting entities. This process has the potential
to deliver huge efficiency gains, but is both complicated and sensitive
for reasons of data confidentiality. This session examines the move to
electronic reporting and examines how some leading institutions have approached
the task.
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