Contributions to the Supervisors on Supervision Stocktake
What is the relationship between culture and governance and how does ambiguity about that relationship contribute to uncertainty?
“We see a strong link between governance and culture in our day-to-day supervision. Personally, I'm a little bit careful to focus too much on the culture part. Ultimately, this is about behaviors, and governance affects behaviors. We shouldn’t be too philosophical about this.
For example, if you have a dominant shareholder who is also playing an important executive role — or is the CEO — there can be a bigger risk of people in the financial institution not speaking up when they observe negative developments that may affect performance.
The governance — for example a CEO that also has a dominant shareholding — can influence the day-to-day operations of the financial institution. Therefore, it has prudential consequences, and that brings it into our remit as a supervisor.
If you have a governance where the top management team’s formal governance rights are different among its team members, that can influence the dynamics in the board. We sometimes have cases where you have an executive board that formally tries to function as one board — but if you look at the small print, it appears that some members have more governance rights than others. These formal differences can affect the culture and dynamics in the board.”
How do supervisors approach supervision in the absence of clear frameworks and guidelines related to culture?
“We have also had discussions in the past that we would do culture-type assessments of top management teams focusing on personal styles and board interactions. I'm reluctant to go there. Ultimately, you have to make a clear link with your prudential powers and prudential objectives, which is problematic in such assessments.
You can occasionally, in a one-to-one, talk to a CEO of a supervised entity, share your observations on how he or she is running the board and apply moral suasion. But most of our supervisory impact is through more formal supervisory powers. You need to ensure that you stay within your prudential mandate.”
What role does culture play in governance failures that ultimately require supervisory attention?
“Interestingly, people with a strong tech background who go into the financial sector, for example, have a different approach. They possess a strong problem-solving attitude, which is positive. When you say, 'This needs to be solved,' they are quick to solve it.
The problem arises when an entrepreneurial style results in the frequent use of trial and error for financial sector issues: just start, see how it plays out, and then course-correct. This trial and-error approach is not fitting for many issues regulated institutions are confronted with.”
How do supervisors approach culture as a factor in governance failures in the absence of clear frameworks?
“I’ve seen situations where changes in a few key positions can really change the operations and performance of a supervised institution. So I think there is clearly a lever that we can use. We take our fit and proper test very seriously.”
How can supervisory culture be made more proactive and effective in connection with evaluating culture-related risk matters?
“Getting the right culture in a supervisory organization is truly top of our mind. If you read the post-mortems of bank failures, there's typically an important element of inertia — of insufficient willingness to act by supervisors. And I think that's a theme that, at least in my day to-day activity as a supervisor, I give a lot of attention to.
Although I believe that in general you can achieve a lot in banking supervision with moral suasion and with setting the right capital requirements, in some cases you need stronger measures, like instructions and fines. And I think that may be difficult for banking supervisors because of the close relationship with the supervised entity.
The real complexity lies not just in increasing the overall level of willingness to act among supervisors, but in ensuring it's applied correctly in each situation. I've seen cases where rank and-file supervisors were overzealous, being very strong on what I viewed as minor issues or mere formalities. So, the true complexity is getting boldness higher on the right issues.
This makes it difficult to give the right signal to staff. It's easy to get this wrong because a simple instruction like, 'You need to be bolder,' might backfire, leading them to focus on the wrong problems. This is the real complexity of this matter. What's important here, obviously, is why supervisors don't dare to act. One reason is that the outcome might be very uncertain. The supervisory case may end up in court, and the supervisor may lose the legal case.”
“One of the most difficult things in regulatory organizations is prioritization. While we try to truly let go of things that aren't important, you never know — even smaller issues may ultimately blow up. Something that appeared minor at the time and was deprioritized may at a later point in time become an important issue.
Then we mustn't start a blame game. I think that's a crucial cultural issue where it also requires us, as leadership, to back people when they, for example, prioritize their supervisory activities.”
Why have supervisors found it challenging to identify and assess culture-related risks prior to a risk event?
“My view is that with banks where the supervisory relationship works well, where you think the supervisory system works well — it's a mindset where ultimately our long-term goals are aligned. We are in favor of successful, profitable, and healthy banks that build capital. That is the type of relationship we have with well-functioning banks.
In good times — and the past years, I think, were relatively good times — I would describe the relationship as: the bank sees our role as positive, believing it can help them be a healthier and more successful bank. And we, in turn, can learn a lot from the bank.”
What emerging techniques and tools offer promise to improve culture measurement and risk assessments?
“Compared to supervision at the national level that we had in the past, we now have so much more information on a wide range of banks and business models. The [Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM)] supervisors oversee a hundred-plus banks. While the executives in a specific bank will have extensive banking experience, the number of observations and insights that we have is so much larger.”
What steps should supervisory bodies consider to help drive their own culture change?
“I think supervisors must be disciplined in implementing digital tools and ensuring that people change their behaviors to use these tools. For me, that's all about what we've learned regarding how digital people [e.g., IT developers] and supervisors work together. It requires two things: digital people trying to listen to what supervisors need, and ultimately the supervisors must actually use the digital tools, and this typically requires a change in how supervisors conduct their day-to-day business.”
“I think what's very important is that at least a significant share of our people should be coming from the private sector.
While institutionally we should be fully independent — because that relates to accountability to the public; how else can the public trust the system if they see links between the supervisor and the supervised entities? — I think it is important to have the right mix of perspectives and experiences in supervisory authorities.
Therefore, I insist on having people from the private sector in our supervisory organization, which truly requires additional recruitment effort.”