Olson Research Associates, Inc.

November 1-3, 2011: Pennsylvania Dept. of Banking

Brad will present about the “Perspectives on Stress Testing” at the CSBS Staff Conference in Harrisburg, PA.

October 27, 2011: CSBS

CSBS Certified Operations Examiner School
Webcast: Evaluating Interest Rate Risk

June 14, 2011: Iowa Bank Examiners

Brad will be presenting "Liquidity, Interest Rate Risk and Stress Testing" at the Annual Staff Conference for the Iowa Division of Banking in Des Moines, IA.

June 7-8, 2011: CSBS

Brad will present at the “Stress Testing for Community Banks” Forum in Covington, Kentucky.

Back-Testing Should Be More Than an Audit Letter

In the latest edition of Safety and Soundness Bank Advisor, April 25, 2011, Brad outlines three tests that every bank should run:

1. The Rubber Stamp Test…
2. The Inspection Test…
3. The Comparison Test…[read the entire article]

For more Safety and Soundness articles, visit: http://www.banksoundness.com/

Model Risk and Smaller Banks

Brad speaks out about  OCC Guidance for Small vs. Large banks in the latest edition of Safety and Soundness Bank Advisor, April 18, 2011.

“…Regulators may say that smaller banks should scale down aspects of the guidance, but unless the guidance is clear on just what does and does not apply to smaller institutions, those institutions tend to find themselves in tough situations during exams, Olson says…”[read the entire article] For more Safety and Soundness articles, visit: http://www.banksoundness.com/

Regulators Key in on User Error in Quantitative Models

Brad chimes in regarding Model Validation in the latest edition of Safety and Soundness Bank Advisor, April 18, 2011.

“…Banks can’t continue to treat model validation as a rubber stamp,” he says. “They can’t give the whole process to one person or one vendor. The regulators are saying that this is a process and that more than one individual needs to be involved. This includes not only those running the model, but also those using the model to make decisions about risk, including the board and senior management. They all need to be involved in the process.”[read the entire article] For more Safety and Soundness articles, visit: http://www.banksoundness.com/

April 11, 2011: CSBS

CSBS Certified Operations Examiner School
Webcast: Evaluating Interest Rate Risk

December 15, 2010: CSBS

CSBS Certified Operations Examiner School
Webcast: Evaluating Interest Rate Risk

Stress Testing Best Practice: For Good Results, Keep It Simple

Our own Brad Olson is quoted again in the latest edition of Safety and Soundness Bank Advisor, December 13, 2010.

”It’s tempting, when you have all these tools and all this technology, to look at your data and say, ‘Hey, look at all the scenarios we could run – We can find out a whole bunch of things,’” says Brad Olson, a stress test consultant and president of Olson Research Associates, Inc, in Columbia, Md. “But at the end of the day, if you’re running multiple scenarios, as many as 20, what you’re left with is a pile of data. That’s a lot of data you’ll have to sift through before making any decisions about your bank.”[read the entire article] For more Safety and Soundness articles, visit: http://www.banksoundness.com/