Abstract. The financial scandals în the last two decades have determined the Basel Committee to improve the risk controls for banks în general, and for operational risk in particular. Operational risk covers all non-market or credit risk, therefore including management risk, IT and fraud risk. By the Basel II Accord, the Committee proposes three risk measurement methods, which induce increasing costs, but also greater reductions în a bank’s capital reserve, and thus în its operating costs.

Keywords: Basel II; operational risk; risk management; banking; risk assessment.