Economic Profit inherently needs Economic Capital because you have to adjust your profit by
the risk that you have taken in order to reach that profit. So that’s how we link to the rest of
the Group and Strategy and Planning in terms of providing cost of risk [the product of
Economic Capital times the cost of equity, for each business unit]. That’s how we feed into
the Finance and Strategy areas.45
A separate Economic Capital team was set up, initially within the planning function. The risk
capital controllers were later transferred to the risk department. They provided risk
management services in two ways. Firstly, the Economic Capital framework helped
determine the risk appetite of the group and contributed to risk limit setting within the
organisation:
The other element that we obviously get involved with is risk appetite. Making sure that now
we have one unit of measurement across the bank of unexpected loss, which is Economic
Capital and then we can use that to allocate our risk appetite.46
Secondly, the Economic Capital framework was used for fine-tuning the capital level
required by the group in order to maintain its AA credit rating:
…what happens when the bottom-up assessment [of risk capital need] is higher than the book
value [of available capital]? … Well, we have a tolerance range which says you can’t
measure these things down to the last penny anyway. So if it comes within 120 per cent then
we are happy, if it comes over 120 percent then we need additional capital.47
This two-fold contribution was a significant step towards Integrated Risk Management. What
bestowed the Economic Capital framework with the image of being ‘integrated’ was its
status as a common denominator and language of risk. It expressed and made comparable
risk taken by the business units and the group.