The Board's committees

The Risk and Capital Committee

The Board ensures that routines are in place to identify and define risks relating to business activities as well as to measure and control risk-taking. The Board’s Risk and Capital Committee supports the Board in this work, although the Board still has ultimate responsibility for the bank’s risk taking and assessing its capital requirements.

The Committee covers the following areas:

• Market risk
• Credit risk
• Liquidity and funding (e.g. limits on liquidity risk)
• Capital (e.g. monitoring the capital base, risk-weighted assets and governance models)

The CEO is not a member of the committee but normally attends its meetings, as do the CFO and CRO.

The Audit Committee

The Audit Committee, through its work and in consultation with the external Auditor, the Head of Internal Audit and the Group Executive Committee, provides the Board with access to information on business activities. Its purpose is to identify any deficiencies in routines and the organisation in terms of governance, risk management and control.

The Audit Committee also reviews the work of the internal and external auditors to ensure that it has been conducted effectively, impartially and satisfactorily.

The Head of Internal Audit is a co-opted member of the committee.

Read more about the Board's Committees in the Corporate governance report.

The Governance Committee

The Governance Committee assists the Board of Directors in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities in relation to the overall approach to corporate governance of the Bank and its subsidiaries. The Governance Committee submits recommendations to the Board for decision.