IABFM Articles

Risk Management Education and Training (December 2006) | Risk Management
by Michael Vincent

Education and training are the key to understanding this new world of risk that is the environment that we must deal with today to achieve business survival and success. It is difficult to give a brief overview of the educational needs of a risk manager because they are a diverse breed covering many disciplines and functions. Importantly to start with we should distinguish between education and training as the words are used interchangeably and without due regard to their fundamental meaning. ...[ Read More ]

Risk Management – an educational perspective (December 2006) | Risk Management
by Michael Vincent

A discussion with a colleague, Kevin Tant, produced the following outline for successful recognition of the concept of risk management as a new management discipline. A lot of readers will see the obvious stated here, luckily you are the converted. Risk management is the ability to identify, measure and finance the risks facing an entity in an effective way to ensure corporate growth and survival. ...[ Read More ]

Economic Downturn – Boom or Bust (December 2006) | Risk Management
by Michael Vincent

Whether we like it or not we are entering an economic downturn, or in blunt terms a recession, how deep or how long is yet to be seen. ...[ Read More ]

Did we learn the lesson from Enron: Who will be next? (December 2006) | Accounting
by Prof. Geoffrey Baring

We have a plethora of laws, standards and regulations in relation to financial reporting. Why? So that investors/stakeholders are supposedly provided with a superior quality of information that will enable them to make better informed judgments about the financial viability of potential investments. So if this is the objective of all of the rules and regulations, what happened to Enron? ...[ Read More ]

The Rise and Rise of the Sukuk: A starters guide… (December 2006) | Islamic Finance
by Michael Armstrong

In the wealth management classes I conduct in the middle-east I include a small session on Islamic-based financing and particularly the Sukuk. In presenting these sessions what has struck me is how little awareness there is out there of this growing branch of finance and the eagerness of the participants to learn more. ...[ Read More ]