Perspectives on the Future of Risk Management
Executing to a Successful End Game
Abstract
Firms should avoid missing out on real possibilities for technology-enabled innovation. This report highlights execution considerations when going to market with risk technology.
Financial institutions are faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (or threat, depending on one’s point of view). Risk management practices are being overhauled in response to volatile market conditions, weighty regulation, and the evolution of transactional technologies, according to the report Perspectives on the Future of Risk Management: Executing to a Successful End Game.
More broadly, the financial landscape is rapidly becoming a multifaceted playing field, with constraints in capital, demands for higher accountability from regulators and investors, and the complex undertaking to alter the shape of the business to meet return targets. Firms are striving to realize an optimal collateral mix, reduce financing costs, manage counterparty credit exposures, and drive vital competitive advantage in the shakeout.
"When discussing the future of risk management, we find that market participants are aware of how the opportunities and threats associated with the business are now inextricably tied to risk practices, which in turn are tied to capital and margin collateral, and linked to the deals in which you participate, the firms you transact with, how you transact, and where you clear, " says Cubillas Ding, Celent Research Director and author of the report.
Yet, when financial firms are enhancing or installing new risk IT platforms, the adoption of next-generation technologies and the delivery of real innovation do not necessarily happen in tandem, nor by default. The conundrum, with firms heavily involved in compliance-led initiatives with tight deadlines and reporting obligations, is that real possibilities for technology-enabled innovation can be missed.
“It is far simpler to embrace buzzwords around ‘advanced analytics,’ ‘real time,’ and ‘firmwide risk views’ than to be strategic in employing these elements to drive innovation,” Ding adds.
This study, commissioned by SAP and executed independently by Celent, was conducted to understand how senior executives within the financial industry envisage what risk management activities will need to look like and to share perspectives on how firms can formulate the right strategies.