Operational Risk Control with Basel II : Basic Principles and Capital Requirements

Rating:
Summary: Impractical and long winded diatrabe
Review: What I wanted:

1] Definition of Operational risk
2] Basel II standard explained in easy English
3] Flowchart for how to go about dealing with it
4] Some kind of standard best practices based on his experiences

What I got

1] Operational risk is everything.
2] Basel II not explained. It seems to assume you already get it.
3] No system is presented. He argues it is all relative.
4] No best practices. Again it is all relative.

He does in fairness mention make a great deal of arguments for the need for operational risk. The problem is that anyone buying the book already understands there is a need. They are buying the book to get hints on what to do about it. I know it is all relative but as an expert he needs to take a stand and come up with some fairly universal best practices. Also he needs to realize that this is a young area and many banks are just creating their Op risk departments and need some kind of help in how to go about that. Not theory but concrete practical help.

To complicate matters his English is boorish and he uses bullets like they were going out of style. Not to sum up things like they are normally used but rather to break up run-on sentences. The sign of a well written book isn't snotty language or fancy math terms. The sign of a good book is that the readers learned something from it. I came away from this book no closer to knowing what to do about Op risk then before I bought it.