Introduction

Managing risk across the enterprise and the many functions, business lines and asset classes, thereby increasing transparency between the Front, Middle and Back Offices has never been more necessary to the banking world. As established during the interviews Lepus conducted in late 2008 looking at risk management practices, there is a growing need to improve the processing, flow and capture of data. It goes without saying that the banks are looking to enhance and improve their systems and processes around monitoring and aggregation of their risk exposure.

Key findings

• Current practice – Very much in line with the other banks, at one top tier US bank, there is a mixture of PowerPoint, E-Mail and Intranet as far as distribution of reports is concerned.
• Technology – In very much a similar vein, at the second bank that Lepus consulted for the purposes of this section of the research report mentioned that they have monthly profiles, but no single consolidated dashboard of key metrics.
• Organisation – Subsequently the interviewees were asked how quickly they can monitor performance, risk and liquidity across the firm and whether the report is end of day or intra day. Naturally, most of the banks spoken to explained that there is always room for further development and improvement in these areas.
• Strategy – One Lepus associate mentioned that their organisation is currently looking to implement an application/tool that will have allow more meaningful management information reports to be produced with the hope of better identifying areas that need attention.

Conclusion

It is abundantly clear that majority of the banks seek to continuously develop and improve in this area. Most of the banks spoken to expressed a desire for a more comprehensive and consolidated enterprise wide solution. As such a tool would not only allow for better decisions to be made, but would allow key stakeholders to act and analyse potential implications of the information rather than spending time collating and pooling the data together.

To obtain a free copy of this section in full, please contact us at marketing@lepus.com with your name, job title, firm, phone number and email.