Equipping the Front Office for the New Risk Environment
A Survey of Strategic and Operational Priorities
Abstract
A survey by Celent, commissioned by SAP, looks at the market and business-level challenges, organizational responses and best practices in managing trading, risk, and regulatory terrain ahead in the US and Europe.
In the report, Equipping the Front Office for the New Risk Environment: A Survey of Strategic and Operational Priorities, Celent examines the changing economics of equities, fixed income, credit and rates businesses, and how trading and risk management capabilities need to respond to market structure changes as well as emerging regulations and disruptive technologies on the horizon.
The past few years have seen intensive discussions and industry debates around regulatory change, derivatives market structure reforms, and their subsequent impact on a banks’ financial resources. The industry has now reached a pivotal time, where it is necessary to execute rather than talk, in spite of regulatory uncertainties ahead. For global financial institutions, Dodd-Frank, EMIR derivatives reforms, and Basel III are expected to individually cost between US$150 million and $350 million per firm. This is larger than any of the “big” precrisis compliance change programmes that we have seen in the last decade, such as SOX, AML, IFRS, MiFID I, and Basel II.
“At this stage, Celent believes that in order to deliver the kind of breakthrough results that risk practitioners, senior executives, and regulators are looking for, multifaceted changes on the business and technology front are required—not the incremental changes and quick fixes that the majority of firms have pursued in the past," says Cubillas Ding, Research Director with Celent’s Capital Markets, Finance and Risk Group. “More importantly, with firms heavily involved in compliance-led initiatives, which are characterized by tight deadlines and reporting obligations, change teams need to bear in mind that their initiatives must be catalyzed by regulation, but led by innovation and value.”
This report draws on findings and insights from Celent's most recent electronic trading, risk management, and technology study conducted to understand how senior executives from global tier 1 financial institutions envisage the future of their capital markets businesses and how their organizations are formulating strategies towards their goals.
This 27-page report contains 11 figures and 1 table.