Frederic Borràs analyzes the challenges of the world economy in his admission as full academician of the RAED
Frederic Borràs, recognized auditor and corresponding academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), entered as a full academician of this institution during a ceremony that was held on June 19 in the Room of Acts for the Catalan labor Promotion of National Work, headquarters of the RAED. The recipient read the admission speech “¿Estamos preparados para la próxima crisis?” (Are we ready for the next crisis?). On behalf of the Royal Corporation answered the full academician José María Gay de Liébana.
The academician analyzes in depth the reforms carried out by the audit, adopting new rules and mechanisms and pointing the way still to be done in the improvement and analysis of financial information in order to offer reliable information that can anticipate hypothetical crisis in the future. From here he tries to answer the question he asks in the title of his work. And he advances some risks that he considers certain, such as the alarming escalation of the debt worldwide.
“There are figures that if we analyze them a bit they can frighten us, and I refer in the first place to the total global debt that is reproduced in the following chart that shows the evolution of the debt since the beginning of the 21st century, in which we can see how the aggregate debt of consumers, banks, companies and governments climbed 269% of global GDP until the beginning of the financial crisis of 2008”, he says.
On the other hand, there is the high level of risk assumed by insurance companies. “Already in 2017 the International Monetary Fund, in its ‘Financial Stability Report’, warned that insurance companies, in their search for higher returns, have assumed higher levels of credit and liquidity risk, as shown by the fact that the amount of low-rated bonds they have in their portfolios has risen substantially”, he continues.
Although the greatest risk, concludes Borràs, is in an unpredictable future marked by major phenomena that will change the current padadigma such as technological disruption or climate change. “We could summarize the situation saying that so far we have moved for greater security looking to the past, but there is no other alternative, if we want to be relevant, that we provide some additional light on the future”, he concludes.
Member of the Transnational Committee of the International Federation of Auditors, the institution based in New York that regulates the profession internationally, Borràs is also a member of the Board of Directors and president of the Audit Practice of IECnet. He is also president of the Advisory Board of Morera Asesores&Auditores and member of the Global Council of the Association for Corporate Growth, the main community of professionals dedicated to mergers, acquisitions and corporate growth at the international level. Among his institutional positions, the academician is the honorary president of the Association of Chartered Accountants of Catalonia.
