Financial Institution Advisory

Board & Executive Leadership Advisory

We provide industry, region specific and practical guidance to the Board and Executive Leadership in meeting their high-level objectives around strategy, risk appetite, capital and organizational management, transition and change initiatives.

Review of the Bank’s strategic objectives, underlying premises, projected numbers, business model, target sectors, product positioning, market segmentation

Capital optimization diagnostics

Efficiency enhancement including Cost to Income, Cost to Service, Head-Count Optimization, Staff Technical Competency Assessment

Institutional Corporate Governance Advisory

Corporate Governance, Risk Culture Enhancement, Business Model Review, enhancement and optimization are all areas which need constant focus, review and revision. Athena’s team of senior bankers can assist the Board and Management in tackling these challenges through reviews, gap analyses, recommendations, and implementation support.

Review Organizational Structure including Decision Matrix, Delegations, Conflict of Interest, Gaps in Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management, Three Lines of Defense, Consumer Protection, Disclosure & Transparency, Compliance & Fraud, Checks & Balances, Compensation Practices

Enhancing Credit & Risk Culture – Measurement, Gaps & Fixes

Governance Practices including Conduct Risk, Whistleblowing, Code of Conduct Testing, Governance-oriented Staff Trainings

Institutional Credit & Risk management Advisory

Provide practical holistic support covering credit risk strategy, appetite, monitoring and process, and add to the current resilience standards within an institution.

Provide Financial Institutions (Bank & non-Bank) – with credit risk management advisory and support – along the First, Second and Third lines of defense.

1. First Line of Defense

Origination/Coverage

Product Areas

2. Second Line of Defense

Credit Underwriting

Credit Administration

Special Assets Management

Independent Risk Management

3. Third Line of Defense

Quality Assurance

Independent Risk Asset Review

Treasury, ALM & Market Risk Advisory

We have the capabilities to provide best-in-class advice on markets, credit and regulatory risk management in line with risk appetite through the strategic redesign of treasury policy and controls. The offering also includes guidance on improving internal product offering through granular measurement of funding and liability costs of individual transactions / products.

1. First Line of Defense

Balance Sheet Management – Review Balance Sheet structure and recommend new product, hedging, diversification, and NIM fee income enhancement solutions

2. Second Line of Defense

Governance – Conduct Model Validation for internal and regulatory requirement

3. Third Line of Defense

Quality Assurance / Independent Risk review – Ad hoc advice and support to the Audit / Risk Committee. Review the integrity of the valuations. Identify any weakness in the governance process.

Financial Markets Product Platform

Treasury to become a product hub to provide holistic solution to clients across the Banks Asset & Liability book. Create a Treasury Sales team to support front line Relationship Managers to extract additional relationship value to enhance RRWA for the Bank.

Identification of Business potential with existing clients

Compliance and counterparty documentation requirements

Assess current and needed infrastructure requirements

Create forward planning and implementation strategy for desired Sales results

Provide guidance on Trading book business plan

Review Trading controls and compliance guidance

Operational Resilience Advisory

Resilience is the ability of an institution to thrive in quickly changing environments

This ability is dependent on the organization being able to adapt to emerging threats, the dependencies and requirements for providing critical business services end-to-end (crossing organizational silos), and the broader economic as well as firm-specific impact of adverse operational events

We assist clients in enhancing their BCM and Operational Risk framework to strengthen their operational resilience capabilities to anticipate, withstand, absorb and recover from severe disruption and extreme incidents.

Diagnostic

Conduct a lessons learned study to evaluate effectiveness of existing operational resilience framework covering Operational Risk /BCM in context of recent crisis and changes in operating model

Identify the key GAPs and develop an action plan to enhance BCM/Operational risk framework to strengthen operational resilience

Develop a prioritized implementation road map

Design

Conduct Pilots to design an integrated Operational – Resilience framework

Finalize revised Operational Resilience framework based on the Pilots

Execution

Enterprise wide Implementation

Training

Testing

Self Assessment

Functional Capability Assessment Advisory

We offer an end-to-end functional capability advisory for senior and middle level executives, evaluating their technical competency for their current and/or intended role, including assessing their industry specific knowledge, understanding suitability of their product and portfolio offering in relation to market and customer segments, their managerial skills including adaptability to change, strategic mindset and decision-making ability.

Review and advise on the technical competency mapping for specific roles

Evaluate technical competency of identified senior and middle level executives to determine their suitability for current and/or intended roles. This is done through a combination of various tools such as competency-based Interviews, review of career track record, manager and peer group review, focused individual knowledge assessment, and others.

Recommendation of learning interventions to bridge competency gap and prepare the executives for a better fitment to their current and/or intended roles

Overall assessment of the institution’s managerial depth to fulfill their strategic vision and objectives