Increasingly, banks are turning to insurance companies to protect their capital from operational risks, including for cyberattacks and unclean employees. Representatives of insurance agencies said they could help creditors, in the form of an additional level of expertise on their part.

After a series of costly lawsuits and interruptions in the work of IT infrastructure, banks like Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Lloyds began to look for ways to minimize the cost of such episodes. Partial coverage of risks by insurance companies was recognized as the best way out of the situation.

Most of these insurance contracts are issued in private, and details are not published anywhere. However, in the past year, public attention was attracted by the sale by Bank Credit Suisse of bonds worth CHF 220 million to cover possible operational risks.

Buyers of bonds have been provided favorable conditions with more than 4% per annum, but they can also suddenly lose their investments, for example, if employees of the bank are accused of committing official crimes or the bank will be committed to cyber attack.

Coverage of potential losses was assumed by the insurance company Zurich Insurance.

Insurance companies employ specialists in operational risks who have worked in large banks for a better understanding of the overall picture and an adequate assessment of the situation in financial institutions.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision defines operational risk as "the risk of loss as a result of inadequate or incorrect actions in dealing with internal processes, personnel, systems or as a result of external factors". The definition falls under cyber attacks, interruptions in the operation of IT infrastructure, industrial espionage and financial fraud.

Banks for the first time began to look at insurance of operational risks even ten years ago, just before the onset of the financial crisis. Then the discussion of this issue was postponed until better times. And so, according to insurance agents, last year several banks again began to show increased interest in this topic.

Large-scale cyberattacks using "WannaCry" and "NotPetya" earlier this year pushed bankers to take decisive action. report a growing demand for operational risk insurance from banks in the UK, Europe, Australia and other countries with developed market economies.