Actuarial services

We are the leading provider of assurance and attest services in the East Africa banking and insurance market. This includes validating numbers, reviewing the methodolody and approaches used, understanding the implications on capital requirements and advising on modifications and improvements

Our industry-leading experience, integration with audit processes, and close connections with regulators, positions us uniquely to offer comprehensive assurance over your IFRS9/ Expected Credit Loss provisions for banks or insurance liability estimates for insurance companies and the related reporting. 

We don’t just assess your numbers, but also assess other key aspects of your reserving/ provisioning process, including performing independent model reviews, reviewing compliance with regulations and reporting standards and assessing the general control environment and reporting processes.

Our assurance services are fully integrated with client audit and reserving support. Thanks to our global reach, we can provide assurance for all your international operations.

IFRS 17 is a significant development in accounting that is having a fundamental impact on the methodology, processes, systems, data and financial statements of insurance companies.

We have a long track record of practical experience across all aspects of the implementation journey which you can benefit from. This includes not only the learnings obtained, but also tools and accelerators. Our IFRS 17 Solved suite of solutions includes a fully-fledged, production-ready IFRS 17 solution which was developed based on our implementation experience. 

The PwC IFRS17 Managed Service leverages IFRS 17 Solved to provide a cost effective solution for insurers in any market. We offer flexibility in the level of support provided, from a full outsourcing of this aspect of your process to simply providing access to our solution through the cloud. Given that IFRS 17 Solved is pre-built and fully configured, insurers do not need to purchase, configure or maintain their own IFRS 17 solutions leading to significant cost savings. Insurers who have already implemented the standard can consider switching to IFRS 17 Solved to optimise their processes by outsourcing this aspect which is highly technical, yet not particularly bespoke to individual insurers.

The current uncertain business and economic environment leads to various risks that need to be managed and understood by a business to be resilient and successful. One of the key risks is credit risk (including uncertainty caused by volatile economic conditions) due to the non-payment of loans or other amounts that are due. The exposure to this risk could be as simple as a trade receivable due from a client or as complex as a structured loan guaranteed by multiple entities. 

We specialise in the estimation of these risks for both retail and wholesale clients using a combination of bespoke and automated solutions developed through our vast experience across: Banks, Other lending institutions, Insurers, Telecommunication companies and Other corporates

Banks additionally face a range of other risks such as liquidity, operational, regulatory and market risk. We are experienced in supporting our clients through this and have developed approaches, tools and capabiltiies including: 

• Impairment managed service including estimation, reporting and analytics
• Forecasting
• Stress testing
• Capital estimation
• Risk scoring and pricing
• Liquidity risk estimation
• Loan book, asset and liability valuations

The execution of business deals is complex, and those deals that do not achieve their original financial or strategic objectives are often as a result of the execution of the deal rather than the underlying strategy.

For business incubation, acquisition, divestiture and restructuring options, we can help our clients unlock value through pre-deal, deal and post-deal support services. We focus on areas such as the initial due diligence, identifying the drivers of the main risk exposure and options for funding arrangements geared towards the current regulatory regimes. We can also help our clients explore options for the most efficient risk mitigation and risk transfer, through developing the most strategically effective capital structures.

By combining our experience in risk management, data processes, analytics and technical expertise with that of the PwC specialist "Deals" teams, we help our clients not leave value on the table.

We can help you design, implement and validate cost-effective and well-governed models capable of providing insights for your business and sharpening your competitive edge.

The expectations for models are increasingly challenging to meet. Boards are seeking deeper insights into risk, capital and strategic management. Regulatory demands and market pressures are escalating the volume of required information while shortening turnaround times. Even with investments in advanced systems, insurers often fall short of meeting expectations and realizing the expected benefits.

We assist our clients in developing comprehensive end-to-end modeling and reporting solutions with the appropriate tools for the job. This includes understanding your business and technical needs to ensure that technology solutions are robust, efficient and sustainable. Additionally, we offer independent health checks on existing models, collaborating with you to validate these models and establish strong governance and control frameworks.

Our diverse team of seasoned professionals brings extensive practical experience to ensure that solutions align with client needs and deliver the expected commercial advantages.

Organisations often have a myraid of tools and models in place to serve different purposes. We support our clients in developing a fit for purpose model risk management framework which brings all the models “under one roof” in terms of model devleopment, validation, governance, maintenance, use and reporinting. 

This allows you to use the outcomes from in-house models for decision making with more confidence and also ensure better alignment between models which have inter-dependencies with other models.

We provide expert analysis and strategic recommendations on insurance-related matters to help organizations manage their risks effectively. This service focuses on evaluating and optimizing insurance arrangements to ensure they align with a company’s risk profile and strategic objectives. We start with a detailed analysis of your current insurance coverage and risk profile. By leveraging our expertise and industry insights, we ensure that your insurance placement process is effective and helping you manage specific risks.

An independent review can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your insurance arrangements. We offer objective evaluations of your current coverage, identifying potential gaps and inefficiencies. By conducting this independent review, we provide actionable insights that help optimize your risk management strategy and achieve better cost efficiency, ensuring you get the best value from your insurance investments.

We offer specialized services to enhance your Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP) and stress testing process and tools, whilst leveraging our extensive technical expertise and understanding of current global practices. With the evolving regulatory and best practice landscape, it is crucial for banks to have a robust process for assessing overall capital adequacy relative to their risk profile and maintaining appropriate capital levels. Our service includes a thorough review of your ICAAP governance framework and stress testing policy and tools implemented, ensuring they align with good practices and are effectively implemented.

We evaluate the roles of the Board and Senior Management, assess the ICAAP process and stakeholder involvement, and review stress testing scenarios, internal validation, and the role of internal audit. Our review also covers the ICAAP document to ensure it aligns with regulatory expectations and accurately reflects risk sources.

We analyze your risk assessment approaches, check consistency with financial and regulatory reports, and engage with stakeholders to refine enhancements. Our review includes scenario generation, macroeconomic variables, and forecasting methods, ensuring alignment with good practices and effective governance.

We focus on integrating ICAAP into strategic decision-making, capital planning, and risk management.

A key component of this is also the development and embedding of an effective stress testing framework and tool. We offer our specialised modelling services to help client develop the right suite of stresses and scenarios and the tools to estimate this.

Organisations are adapting to constant disruption by transforming their approach to building business resilience to thrive—not just survive—in today’s era of ‘permacrisis’ and ‘polycrisis.’ The key to success is resilience: the ability to navigate through crises, and the capacity to adapt and succeed in the face of constant disruption. Resilience has become a strategic imperative. 

At PwC we leverage from our Global Centre for Crisis and Resilience has a tested and proven methodology of preparing and responding to crises as well as building resilience for all types of organisations. In particular, we support clients in Crisis preparedness, Crisis reponse and Resilience capabilities. 

Our multidisciplinary experts work with our clients to help them better prepare in three core components of enterprise resilience including:

• Strategic resilience: the ability to evolve and build agility into the organisation
• Operational resilience: the ability to maintain critical operations during disruption

Financial resilience: the ability to maintain capital and cash flow during disruption

Clients must report specific information about their employee benefits provisions under the International Accounting Standard 19R (IAS 19R). IAS 19R requires an actuarial valuation of long-term employee benefits. An actuarial valuation is an assessment of an entity's future liabilities (as of the reporting date) calculated using a set of forward-looking best estimate financial and demographic assumptions.

Our team can assist with the following:

• Provide professional guidance in setting the valuation assumptions
• Conduct actuarial valuations in respect of various long-term employee benefits
• Analyse the change in the year-on-year liability
• Project the accounting charge in future years
• Assess the sensitivity of the benefit liability to changes in assumptions

The service helps clients to satisfy their financial reporting requirements in respect of IAS 19R.

Through our deep industry knowledge, extensive experience and understanding of the regulatory environment, we are uniquely placed with the ability to assist our clients with their asset-liability management (ALM), balance sheet management and related reporting exercises. We can help to understand the risks inherent in frameworks and processes, and ensure that sound risk management practices are in place to identify, measure, monitor, control and report on these risks.

Related to ALM is the broader practice of balance sheet optimisation. In the current economic environment there is increased pressure on profitability and the long-term sustainability of this, placing greater scrutiny on the use of capital resources. We can help you to develop the strategic insights, efficient capital management and effective risk management processes that are critical to generating favourable and sustainable returns. 

We can also help you to understand and use new regulation to your advantage. For example, we can help you to identify opportunities for acquisition, divestment or restructuring, as well as help you put processes in place to enable prompt reporting.

An ineffective, minimal reinsurance strategy can lead to insurers accepting more risk than their risk appetite allows for. Excessive or inappropriate levels of reinsurance cover result in insurers passing on too much profit to reinsurers. Through our market-leading expertise and experience in risk strategy and prevailing regulation, we help our clients to develop an optimal and tailor-made reinsurance strategy which aligns with their business strategy and risk appetites.

Examples of areas where we can provide assistance include:

• Investment strategy
• Reinsurance optimisation
• ESG strategy and reporting

All industries have experienced increased pressure from shareholders, governments and society at large to not only be transparent regarding their current ESG (environmental, social and governance) practices, but also to set meaningful and realistic ESG targets and put strategies in place to achieve these.

With the release of new international standards dealing with disclosure of sustainability and climate-related information, focus is needed on end-to-end reporting processes. This can often involve generating or sourcing large datasets, validating and translating data into meaningful information, monitoring key metrics, and disclosing this information in the prescribed method. With the combination of our industry-specific knowledge, regulatory understanding, specialist skills in the areas of climate and broader ESG topics, as well as data analytics, modelling and reporting competencies, we can offer valuable support in this space. 

Examples of areas in which we can provide support include:

• Developing and validating data processes for ESG-related reports
• Climate risk modelling (physical and transition) and strategy setting
• Emissions modelling and optimisation strategy

Our modelling capabilities cover both current emissions and climate risks, and future projections.