Regulation of Cyber Risk in the Banking System: A Canadian Case Study

Maziar Peihani

Journal of Financial Regulation, 2022, vol. 8, issue 2, 139-161

Abstract: Cyberrisk is one of the greatest threats facing any modern financial system; a result of increasing dependence on technology and the appeal of troves of personal data to well-equipped hackers. This article examines the governance of cyber risk in the Canadian banking system in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, which has led to a surge in cyber-attacks. It argues that the existing Canadian regime, which draws heavily on the Basel operational risk framework, is unfit to handle the unique challenges posed by cyber risk. Cyber incidents are unlike traditional operational disruptions in both their dynamism and impact, and are not adequately captured by backward-looking proxies, such as historical losses. There is also a mismatch between the traditional risk-based supervision, which relies on annual risk rating of banks, and the quickly changing cyber profile of regulated entities. Furthermore, the bilateral and institution-specific nature of such supervision leaves out the crucial systemic perspective on cyber risk. This article calls for the current quantitative paradigm, which underlies capital adequacy regulation, to be complemented with a resilience-centric approach aimed at better accommodating and learning from unpredictable cyber incidents. This shift requires revisiting traditional supervisory practices, such as extensive reliance on centralized decision-making and planning—which may prove ineffective in the face of a firm-wide cyber incident—and a dynamic approach that keeps regulation in line with emergent knowledge. The article outlines a number of strategies which can help banks and regulators navigate and adapt to the ever-changing cyber landscape.

Keywords: banks; Basel Accords; cyber risk; operational risk; systemic cyber risk; third-party service providers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jfr/fjac006 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:refreg:v:8:y:2022:i:2:p:139-161.

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Financial Regulation is currently edited by Dan Awrey, Geneviève Helleringer and Wolf-Georg Ringe

More articles in Journal of Financial Regulation from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().