APRA announces 2011 Brian Gray Scholarship recipients

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) today announced the recipients of the 2011 Brian Gray Scholarship to study topics in the financial sector.

The four recipients of the 2011 scholarship are:

• Nicholas Preston — Honours candidate, Bachelor of Actuarial Studies and Bachelor of Science (Finance), Australian National University;
• James Starr — Honours candidate, Bachelor of Commerce, Monash University;
• Jamie Tao — Honours candidate, Bachelor of Commerce, University of New South Wales; and
• James Watson — Honours candidate, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Commerce, University of Melbourne.

Under this Scholarship program, the recipients devote a substantial amount of time to an agreed research topic and present their findings to APRA upon completion of their research. The scholarship recipients will be researching the following topics:

• The determinants of subjective financial well-being and the ability of households to cope with wealth shocks — Nicholas Preston;
• The impact of competition reforms on the characteristics of Australian syndicated loans — James Starr;
• Capturing non-exchangeable dependence in multiple lines of insurance using Levy copulas — Jamie Tao; and
• The implied volatility of call and put options as a measure of bank riskiness — James Watson.

The Brian Gray Scholarship program was established by APRA and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in September 2002 in memory of Brian Gray, APRA's former Executive General Manager, Policy Research and Consulting, who spent more than two decades shaping regulatory policy in the financial area in his roles at the RBA and APRA. The scholarships are valued at $12,500 each.

The Scholarship program is open to Australian and New Zealand citizens and permanent residents who are currently studying a topic of relevance to prudential regulation. While the program focuses on honours year students, postgraduate students can also apply.

More information on the Brian Gray Scholarship is available on APRA's website.