Product control

Within banking, product control are a center of cost responsible for the daily PnL(Profit and Loss) and its explanation for a dedicated trading desk. The team is responsible to communicate this result within the bank and to the authority FED or ECB.

The explanation of the PnL is the income attribution, it is the decomposition of the PnL by risk factor. Usually risk factor are Rate, delta, theta, dividend, repo, credit effect... More effect may be involved.

Within some company the product control task is linked to the risk analyst job, as VaR (Value At Risk) or STT(Stress Test) or even the sensitivity are all link to the PnL.

They are responsible for the monitoring of trades in the portfolios they look after, and act as a primary control function; monitoring trading activity to ensure it is within a specified limit.

In turn product controllers are responsible for ensuring traders mark their books to fair value prices.

There have been many high-profile cases of where banks have been fined for this control not working effectively, examples including the USA's financial services regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, fining European Investment Bank Credit Suisse over mis-marking bonds during the height of the subprime credit crisis.[1]

Poor product control procedure were also noted in the collapse of US investment Bank Lehman Brothers.[2]

Processes that comes under product control are wealth management, reconciliation, accounting of records, and trade support.

References

  1. ↑ FT "SEC Charges Former Credit Suisse Investment Bankers in Subprime Bond Pricing Scheme During Credit Crisis"
  2. ↑ BBC "The lessons of Lehman for other banks"


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