Organizational Model - Risk Office

The main duties of the Risk Office are to support the Board of Directors in the development and implementation of risk management processes in their various aspects and jurisdictions.

During 2005, the Risk Office concentrated its activity on the creation of an efficient management and risk control infrastructure, harmonizing its own needs with those resulting from the implementation of International Accounting Standards and the New Basel Agreement, in a perspective of organizational centralisation and integration of the multiple aspects of risk management.

Within this framework a set of initiatives were developed with a view to: making a new information structure available; covering all operations; the acquisition of an analytical risk calculation system which will allow the reuse of methods and tools for different objectives, and the adaptation of internal regulations.

The definition and implementation of IAS 39 calculation models to be used in all the entities of the Group, and the modelling of the Bank's operational processes in order to support the calculation of operational risk and improve the monitoring of the internal control system, were the other main projects developed during 2005.

A routine for the accompaniment and monitoring of the various systems for granting and evaluating the quality of credit was also implemented, ensuring the permanent suitability of the models used.

Monitoring operations abroad aim at extending the best practices already used in Portugal to these subsidiaries.