with regards to risk management, because of the Basel II Accord, and business continuity. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning requires huge effort. We have created a new disaster recovery service for Banca Intesa and are extending it to other group companies.

Please describe the importance of risk management at Banca Intesa.

At Banca Intesa, we place a huge emphasis on risk management. We were the first bank with an internal model for market risk approved by Italy’s central bank, nearly four years back. Today, risk management is even more critical at the bank because of the upcoming mandatory Basel II capital adequacy requirements. We have focused our efforts to ensure management of risk at all levels in the organization. In the first phase