Experts Join Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Studies’ Webinar to Assess Regulatory Impact on Capital Adequacy

The Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Studies (EIBFS), a regional leader in banking and finance education and training, today hosted a webinar titled ‘Regulatory Impact on Bank Capital Adequacy’, that examined the effects of the pandemic on the financial sector and the steps implemented by the sector to overcome these challenges.

The webinar drew over 140+ participants and a panel of expert speakers including Mohammed Damak, Senior Director, Sector Lead Financial Institutions, MEA, S&P Global Ratings, Sandip P Kanabar, AVP- ICAAP and Stress Test, Group Risk  Emirates NBD, Dr Hannes Keller, Assistant Director, Capital & Liquidity, Banking Supervision, Central Bank of the UAE, Darren Clarke, Chief Financial Officer, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Justin Baldacchino, Managing Director, Supervision, Dubai Financial Services Authority and Slim Ben Ali, FRM, Director, KPMG moderated the session.

The speakers examined the myriad steps taken by the financial sector to stem the flood of disruption unleashed by the pandemic, from a regulatory standpoint such as improving operational resilience, digitalization, re-modelling customer experiences and ensuring business continuity.  The attendees of the webinar concurred that bank will need to remain vigilant and prudent over the year and continue, as they have done, to extensively focus on strengthening capital, maintaining a high level of liquidity, and tracking exposures on a daily basis.

During the session, the experts praised the efforts of the UAE government in proactively addressing the concerns of the financial sector and agreed that the country’s banks will be able  to bounce back better from the pandemic owing to the strong capital buffers in place. In addition, the government’s drive to enhance regulatory frameworks around capital borrowing and lending and to enact policy around liquidity standards, are also set to pay rich dividends in post-pandemic recovery.

Speaking on the webinar, Jamal Al Jassmi, General Manager of EIBFS, said: “Our session today touched upon the critical issue of economic recovery and the role regulation plays in stabilizing the market. Our experts shared interesting insights on the regional and international capital adequacy norms  and the steps taken by the financial sector to minimize disruption.”

He added: “We are happy to note that our participants from the banking sector benefitted immensely from the session based on their feedback. As a leading training institute in the UAE, we believe that learning often happens in conversation.. We hope that this Webinar Conference met its goal of fostering learning through conversation among all participants who came to interact with senior practitioners who are leaders in their respective organisations in order to acquire a whole new dimension of financial knowledge focused on the Regulatory Impact on Capital Adequacy.

To watch a recording of the entire session, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K8zUipKQUo&feature=youtu.be