Ben Townend Email & Phone Number

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Bankwest is a West Australian based full-service bank, which is pivoting towards digital, home loans and the broker channel. Bankwest has 1.2 million customers, a home loan book of > $80bn, and has over 3000 staff. My role as Head of Credit Risk was responsible for oversight and challenge of credit strategy proposals, ensuring mortgage book growth from July 2022 to March 2023; until conscious appetite decisions were made to protect margins. To achieve these growth outcomes, I collaborated with colleagues from the Home Loan Products team supporting and challenging them, often within the Financial Risk Committee, to operate within credit, regulatory standards, and risk appetite. From July 2022 to June 2023, the RBA lifted the overnight cash rate 10 times, from 0.85% to 4.1%. There was industry wide concern about the impact on customers from the anticipated 'mortgage cliff' as they rolled off pandemic era fixed rate mortgages. To prepare for this, I supported the Credit Strategy Team and the Collections Team develop 'downturn planning' solutions, which gave customers greater choice and flexibility to manage their mortgage commitments and alleviate stress, whilst remaining compliant with APG223, APS 220 and ASIC RG209. I led, coached and developed a small team of multidisciplinary credit risk colleagues, and together we achieved a People & Culture Score of 84%. I also led and coached a virtual team of 18 colleagues from across geographies and risk functions (AML, compliance, privacy, credit risk, operational risk and enterprise risk) to develop the 2023 Emerging Risk Paper for the CBA Retail Banking Leadership Team. Of note, I made a significant contribution to an emerging risk associated with financed emissions, developing recommendations to reduce scope 3 emissions.

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

In May 2018, the regulator APRA released its Inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank's (CBA's) governance, culture and accountability, which followed the well-publicized AUSTRAC investigation into AML CTF failings at the CBA. In response CBA launched its Remediation Action Plan (RAP), which was ultimately closed in September 2021, and led to release of a $500m capital overlay (initially $1bn). As a result of the RAP, the Head of Operational Risk role was created to lead a team of 20 colleagues. In this role, I was responsible for implementing all RAP actions within the line 2 operational risk team and overseeing effective implementation within Bankwest. My accountabilities were bank wide, covering all operational risk framework elements, and initially all Bankwest divisions: enterprise services (technology), products, customer experience, support functions, retail and business banking distribution channels. I represented Operational Risk, developing and presenting the Chief Risk Officer's Report at the Operational Risk Committee, providing insight into the bank's operational risk profile and engaging with senior leaders on their management action plans and implementation of framework elements. I reshaped the operational risk function, aligning team capability and structure to the 3 lines of assurance operating model. I cultivated a skilled risk team, coaching and developing relationship management and technical risk capability. One particular area of focus was on developing line 2 assurance capability, which was successfully deployed over key focus areas including embedment of RAP actions within Bankwest and APRA Residential Mortgages Review (for which I shared a Risk Management Quarterly Team Award), amongst others.I am particularly proud of my contribution to team culture, leading the Community Engagement People & Culture Team, to encourage the broader risk management team to re-engage with each other and the community, as we emerged from the pandemic.

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

In late 2017, Bankwest embarked upon its agile transformation, creating a new division 'Customer Experience' (CX) bringing together cross functional teams in a 'Spotify like' operating model. Bankwest implemented its digital agile transformation, 5 years ahead of the rest of the CBA Group. In a newly created role, I led a small team of 4 to partner the CX division implement the agile transformation. This included supporting agile tribes to deliver digital and regulatory change to ensure appropriate consideration of relevant risk and controls. My role also involved, at a divisional level, challenging the development of the 'CX' risk profile, approach to vendor management, issues management and control environment.To overcome potential friction between the new operating model and risk frameworks, I refined and embedded the risk assessment tools into the agile lifecycle supported by appropriate SME engagement, materiality thresholds and updated accountabilities to ensure Customer / Product owners effectively completed 'risk in change' assessments. This approach ensured the risk tools were fit for purpose and integrated in the new operating model. The core principles underpinning the Bankwest risk in change model, were later adopted by the CBA Group.

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

I led a large multidisciplinary team of 15 colleagues, delivering a wide range of services including policy development, controls assurance, thematic reviews, and risk committee reporting. In this role, I focused on optimizing risk frameworks, leveraging productivity tools and methods. I centralized a controls assurance model to lift quality and incorporate a design effectiveness methodology (CAVR). Through operating model design, and standardization of practices, 5 FTE capacity was created (>30% increase in productivity), which was then deployed on the additional design effectiveness testing. This outcome was recognized by a Risk Management Productivity Award. Through these changes in 2016 and 2017, the team's People & Culture Scores remained best in class.In early 2015, the CBA acquired a small South African fintech 'TYME' for its capability and exposure to emerging markets. Soon thereafter, TYME applied for a South African banking license. As part of that license application, I supported my CBA IFS colleagues by co-facilitating the development of TYME's operational risks profiles onsite in Johannesburg. Whilst onsite, I learned firsthand, receiving consistent feedback from Executives, that the Group Frameworks were not fit for purpose for an agile fintech, particularly the vendor management frameworks, and needed to be adapted. This was a critical lesson that helped shape my perspective on designing frameworks that are tailored to the business mix and objectives. Ultimately, the banking application was provisionally granted in June 2016, and CBA later adapted its operating model for fintech incubation through X15 ventures.

Perth, Australia

From 31 December 2013, APRA revoked the AIRB (Advanced Accreditation) for non-retail credit risk, due to failure to meet post-accreditation requirements related to data quality issues and a weak data quality related control environment. Soon thereafter, I joined Risk Management in a Line 2 Business Partner role to support Bankwest Business with its re-accreditation efforts and ensure effective implementation of operational and compliance risk management frameworks. As part of my role, I supported the controls design project (Credit Control Framework), as an operational risk SME to ensure that controls were effectively designed. This project successfully integrated controls within credit risk systems, resulting in a successful Basel II re-accreditation. In 2016, the project team was recognized with a Bankwest Top 75 'Hero' Award for Excellence.

Perth, Australia

As a Line 1 risk champion, I supported three lines of business (Chief Technology Office, Process Optimization, and Customer Delivery (Project Management).In this role, I rebuilt the line of business risk profiles, aligning them to business objectives. As part of this activity, I championed consideration of operational risk in the project portfolio (risk in change) and established controls monitoring across Bankwest projects.

Perth, Australia

In the role of Senior Manager, I was lead SME for the program that deployed the CBA Group's Operational Risk Management Framework within Bankwest. This included developing the Bankwest Risk Profile, policy and procedural development, and implementation of the CBA Group's Governance, Risk & Compliance System. The outcome of this program was that Bankwest was granted approval from APRA to use the Advanced Measurement Approach for Operational Risk (i.e. achieved Basel II Advanced Accreditation).

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) is Australia's largest bank by market capitalization and size of mortgage book. In 2010, the CBA reported an NPAT of $5.6bn. As a Risk Advisor, in Group Operational Risk, I was responsible for providing framework assurance and subject matter expertise to business unit facing operational risk teams. In that role, I contributed to the development of the first Issue Management Standard, which resolved inconsistent and duplicated issues reporting. In 2008, CBA acquired Bankwest for $2.1bn, and Bankwest commenced calculating its regulatory capital under the Basel II Standardised Approach. APRA advised that Bankwest as a significant subsidiary needed to implement CBA Group Policies, and failure to do otherwise would place the Group's Basel II Accreditation (with significant adverse capital impact) at risk. To support the extension of the Group's Operational Risk Management Framework to Bankwest, I undertook an on-site review and gap analysis between the two frameworks, adding cultural and operational model observations. The outcome was that all recommendations were agreed and incorporated within the scope of the Risk Program to implement the Group's Frameworks.

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

As an Assistant Manager, later promoted to Risk Advisor in October 2008, I was tasked with implementing risk frameworks and supporting business leaders to mitigate risk, across the CBA Group's Support Functions, including HR, Marketing & Communications, and Risk Management.

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority is the Prudential Regulator for Australian authorized deposit taking institutions (banks), insurers, superfunds, and reinsurers. APRA now regulates 1844 institutions, with over $8.6tn in assets (as at 2024). As a Graduate and then Analyst on the Basel II Program, I was responsible for contributing to the assessment of Australian ADIs for the accreditation of their nonretail credit risk models for the calculation of capital under Basel II. This involved desk top reviews of credit policies, applications, and on-site visits to interview Senior Executives and Risk Management personnel. I contributed to the credit risk Basel II Program for two years before moving to the operational risk program, as a Senior Analyst where I assessed operational risk models and frameworks.

Masters

Bachelor Of Science - Bs