Annual Report 2011 - Hong Kong Monetary Authority

Notes to the consolidated
fi nancial statements
Description of operations
and disclosure of staff size
Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild SA is a full-service
bank specialising in wealth manage ment for private and
institutional clients. It is a member of SIX Swiss Exchange.
Converted to full-time jobs, the number of staff employed
by the Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild Group stood
at 1683 at end-2011 versus 1604 a year earlier.
Through its network of branches and subsidiaries in
Switzerland and abroad, the Group conducts on its clients’
behalf all the operations customarily performed by private
banking institutions. Fee and commission business on
behalf of clients mainly includes portfolio management,
fiduciary deposits and payment transactions, along with
trading in securities, precious metals and derivative
instru ments. The Group also manages and administers
investment funds.
In addition, the Group actively deals in debt instruments,
equities, currencies, precious metals and derivatives on a
proprietary basis, but does not engage in commodity trading.
Disclosure of accounting principles
and valuation policies
The general accounting and consolidation principles are
set out under a separate heading.
All assets, liabilities and off-balance sheet transactions
reported under the same heading in the Notes to the
consolidated financial statements.
74 2011 ANNUAL REPORT - BANQUE PRIVÉE EDMOND DE ROTHSCHILD SA
Description of our risk control
and management system
Risk management
Risk policy
Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild SA (“the Bank”) is
responsible for supervising, administering and monitoring
the Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild Group (“the
Group”), of which it is the parent company.
A joint risk policy drawn up by the Bank and approved by
the Board of Directors sets the general guidelines that
apply to all the Group entities. Taking account of these
guidelines and local regulations, each affiliate sets up its
own section in charge of identifying, monitoring and mitigating
the risks to which it is exposed.
The Bank has longstanding experience with risk management,
and has equipped itself with sufficient human and
technical resources in terms of quantity as well as quality.
Risk management is organised in the following manner:
- The Board of Directors decides what the features of risk
management should be and what strategy the Group
should pursue with regard to risk.
- The Audit Committee supervises and evaluates the operational
aspects of risk management. It monitors risks periodically
by examining reports compiled at regular intervals
or on request by the Risk Control and Management Dept.
- The Executive Committee is responsible for implementing
procedures designed to identify, analyse, value and monitor
all risks incurred by the Bank and the Group. Together
with the Risk Committee it oversees implementation of
the risk policy laid down by the Board of Directors and
ensures that all important information on the status of the
aforementioned risks is collected, processed and notified
to the designated management and supervisory bodies.
- Department heads are in charge of anticipating, preventing
and managing the main occurrences that could affect the
attainment of their business objectives and the underlying
operational processes.