Operational risks in fund accounting

Over the past years, the landscape of the investment fund industry has been reshaping itself, adapting to the evolving financial markets. Along with this shift, changes have occured in the way the fund accountants operate, organise, manage risk, implement regulations and interact with other stakeholders of the investment fund value chain.

Our training aims at helping participants understand and monitor the different risks inherent to the FA operations and processes.

• By the end of this session, participants will have a good understanding of operational risk linked to fund accounting activities and of its causes (people, processes, systems and external events).

• Risk management and the different types of risks (market, credit, liquidity, operational and others)
• Definition of operational risk
• Operational risk (processes, people, systems, external events)
• ORM (identify, assess, optimise, monitor, report) and the 3 lines of defence model

This training will be coordinated by Anthony Bianco, Partner, and Laura Geisen, Director at PwC Luxembourg.

Anthony Bianco is a partner at PwC Luxembourg, co-leading Internal Audit and Regulatory Advisory services for Financial Sector clients, including Asset Management and Banks. With over 18 years of experience in internal and external audit, he holds a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) qualification. Anthony oversees numerous compliance and regulatory advisory projects within the Asset Management and Alternatives industries, focusing on CSSF inspection preparation, licensing processes, compliance methodologies, and policy development. His expertise spans Internal Audit, Asset Management, Regulatory Compliance, and AML/CFT/KYC, with notable client projects involving management companies, alternative investment fund managers, specialised PFS, fund administrators, registrar agents, and depositary banks.

Toufik Chaïb is a partner leading the Trust and Transparency Solutions team at PwC Luxembourg, specialising in bridging operational and external stakeholder requirements with a focus on IT, including ISAE 3402/3000, SOC2, and other ISAE IT-based solutions. He leads PwC’s task force on controls and processes for Sustainable Finance and supports clients with ESG product distribution. Previously, Toufik was Head of the PwC Luxembourg desk in Hong Kong/China, serving as Market Leader for clients operating between Luxembourg and China. He also leads the AWM APAC team for PwC Luxembourg, advising financial institutions in Asia Pacific on European asset management strategies. His expertise covers Asset & Wealth Management, fund distribution strategy, risk assurance, regulatory compliance (UCITS & AIFMD), and audit matters, with notable clients including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, and others.

Laura Geisen is a director in the Risk Assurance department with over 15 years of experience in internal and external audit, primarily serving financial sector clients such as banks and asset management firms. She began her career in 2010 at PwC Luxembourg, focusing on external audits of investment funds and management companies. Since 2017, Laura has led internal audit reviews for financial clients outsourcing their audit functions to PwC. She also supported a major financial institution’s compliance function for six months, designing and implementing a compliance monitoring plan. Her expertise includes risk assessment, controls reviews, operational risk management, and regulatory compliance, with involvement in advisory projects on policies, procedures, and AML/CTF risk frameworks.