The importance of culture Culture is a somewhat nebulous concept, and much more difficult to define and measure than profitability, pricing, compliance with regulatory requirements, such as minimum capital requirements, liquidity coverage ratios, and so on. But, that does not make it any less important – as the saying goes, it eats strategy for breakfast2.
The Financial Stability Board defines culture as an “institution’s norms, attitudes and behaviours related to risk awareness, risk taking and risk management, or the institution’s risk culture. "3 Or to put in another way, an organisation’s culture is formed by the assumptions, values, expectations and beliefs, which drive behaviours of staff. When we talk about culture, what we are really talking about is behaviour.