CRO Outlook

ERM: Risk Identification and Assessment

June 20, 2025

Chief risk officers often rely on a standard methodology to manage trend analysis, resource allocations, risk comparisons and risk reporting ...

ERM: Risk Versus Uncertainty

May 23, 2025

Chief risk officers seeking to develop an enterprise risk management program must distinguish established risks from those that are shrouded in ...

ERM: The Importance of Building a Risk Taxonomy

April 17, 2025

Chief risk officers seeking to develop an enterprise risk management program must standardize the language of risk. What are the elements of a proper ...

It’s CRO Performance Evaluation Time

February 21, 2025

Chief risk officers need to understand how CEOs assess their impact and value, as well as how they can properly express their worth.

A Risk Forecast for 2025: 5 Predictions

January 17, 2025

Chief risk officers will need to augment traditional risk assessment with a new approach to radical uncertainties.

Mossad-Hezbollah Aftermath: A New Perspective on Third-Party Risks

November 25, 2024

Although the war in the Middle East seems distant, recent attacks involving electronic devices have reminded us about the need for effective ...

How to Manage Uninsured Deposit Liquidity Risk

September 20, 2024

Recent bank failures have confirmed that managing liquidity risk remains a complex and daunting task. This is particularly true for firms with large ...

How to Better Manage Operational Risk in Uncertain, Volatile Times

August 9, 2024

Banks must now contend with complex cyber hazards, growing AI and a variety of other threats, but there are specific steps they can take to improve ...

Avoiding the Risk Management Growth Trap

July 19, 2024

Banks that grow too fast are prone to failure, especially when they lack proper governance and risk management frameworks. But there are steps they ...

Are Board Risk Committees Up to the Task of Overseeing Large, Complex Banks?

June 21, 2024

Big banks today boast board risk committees, but the members of those committees often lack the risk expertise needed to ask tough questions on ...

Is the Three Lines of Defense Paradigm Dead?

May 24, 2024

A three-pronged approach to risk management has been widely employed by the financial services industry for the past 10 years. This model, however, ...

Reflections on Daniel Kahneman’s Contributions to Risk Management: The Power of Human Frailties

April 12, 2024

All major risk management failures of the past 50 years have been driven at least partly by human biases and tendencies. Now is a good time to ...

Balancing the Business Model and Concentration Risk

March 15, 2024

It is extremely difficult to identify, measure and manage adverse concentrations. Why is it important to understand the effects of concentration risk ...

Geopolitical Risk Is Spreading Across the Risk Spectrum. Are You Prepared?

February 9, 2024

Whether we’re talking about, say, the Israel-Hamas armed conflict, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, or attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the ...

New Year's Resolutions for Risk Managers in 2024

January 12, 2024

Finding balance in managing risk and return is extremely challenging, especially during periods of uncertainty fueled by geopolitical tensions, cyber ...

The FHFA's New Vision: A Wonderful Life for the Federal Home Loan Banks?

December 15, 2023

FHLBanks have moved away from their intended mission as community-oriented mortgage lenders and are therefore in need of a revamp. The Federal ...

Operational Risk Capital Proposal: Time to Hit the Pause Button

November 17, 2023

The so-called Basel III Endgame could lead to significant amendments in operational loss estimation at big banks. But these recommended regulatory ...

How to Reduce Bank Failures: A Novel Approach

October 13, 2023

Poor risk governance, culture and infrastructure have been responsible for many financial meltdowns, including this year’s SVB and Signature Bank ...

SVB and Signature Bank Fallout: Why We Need a New Approach to Regional Bank Regulation and Risk Management

September 8, 2023

Regulators seem intent on once again increasing capital and liquidity requirements for banks of a certain size – but data shows that mid-sized ...

The Commercial Real Estate Dilemma and Its Impact on Bank Risk Management

July 14, 2023

Banks that are heavily invested in the troubled CRE market now face a variety of complex risks, from the remote work trend to rising inflation to the ...

The Fed’s Report on Silicon Valley Bank: Key Risk Takeaways

June 9, 2023

There was plenty of blame to go around for the demise of SVB, but regulatory findings show that banks require more proactive boards and need to ...

First Republic Fallout: A Call for More Effective Bank Board Risk Committees

May 2, 2023

The collapse and eventual sale of First Republic was a stark reminder that greater scrutiny of interest rate, liquidity and credit risks is needed to ...

Reimagining the Federal Home Loan Bank System

April 6, 2023

How can we reduce systemic risk and create more competition in the U.S. mortgage secondary market? A pair of GSEs currently dominate this space, but ...

Silicon Valley Bank: A Failure in Risk Management

March 14, 2023

What drove the collapse of SVB? Insufficient board oversight, incomplete modeling and poor liquidity risk management practices were among the key ...

The Risk Appetite Dilemma: How to Overcome Obstacles and Enhance Risk-Adjusted Return

February 17, 2023

Risk appetite statements can yield many benefits, but only when they adhere to established risk-tolerance levels and make use of proper metrics that ...

Reducing Operational Risk with Systems Engineering

January 13, 2023

What are the underlying problems behind the operational failures that have plagued large banks? Should they consider a systems engineering approach ...

FTX Fiasco: Risk Management Lessons Learned

December 16, 2022

The failure of the crypto giant has shined a spotlight on the crucial role of CEOs, who must lead the development of comprehensive, engaging risk ...

How to Avoid the Risk Mechanic Syndrome in Machine Learning

November 4, 2022

Complex, ML-driven risk models are trending at financial institutions, sometimes at the lamentable expense of critical-thinking skills. Consequently, ...

The Forecast for U.S. Housing Risk: Cracks in the Foundation?

October 7, 2022

The American housing market has fared well this year, but there have been some ominous signs lately – particularly in the nonbanking sector. Should ...

A Call to Arms: Incorporating Extreme Events into Financial Risk Models

September 16, 2022

Recent nonfinancial incidents, including geopolitical conflicts, the pandemic and a supply-chain crisis, have destabilized markets and sent risk ...

Multiple Credit Scores in Mortgage Lending: Understanding the Risks

August 26, 2022

As policymakers consider allowing the use of multiple credit scores in mortgage underwriting, banks need to be alert to risks to lenders and ...

Avoiding the Model Myopia Trap

July 15, 2022

Machine learning has advanced the analytical power of models to new heights. However, to maximize this disruptive technology, risk modelers must ...

Can Your ERM Framework Accommodate Risk Entanglement?

June 17, 2022

It is imperative for risk managers to better understand how individual risks interact with each other. But why should they shift away from risk ...

Building a Unified Theory of Risk Management: How and Why

May 13, 2022

To improve enterprise risk management, move further away from risk silos, and gain a better understanding of both obvious and hidden risks, the ...

Credit Access and Risk: A Balancing Act

April 8, 2022

GSEs have in the past relied on a singular credit score to evaluate borrower credit risk, but the FHFA is now considering whether Fannie Mae and ...

Is Standard Scenario Analysis Outdated?

March 11, 2022

Whether we remain overreliant on traditional risk forecasting tools is a key question that has arisen as a result of both the pandemic and the ...

Model Risk Challenges and Opportunities in 2022

February 4, 2022

Rapidly-changing economic, regulatory and environmental conditions this year should heighten risk model teams’ focus on data, technology and climate ...

Risk Management Predictions for 2022: Seeking Alternatives in Times of Uncertainty

January 7, 2022

Interest-rate risk, regulatory changes, supply-chain disruptions, credit risk and human-capital risk are among the threats that will likely be top of ...

How to Select, Monitor and Manage Useful KRIs

October 22, 2021

The effectiveness of a financial institution's risk management program depends, in no small part, on the key risk indicators it uses to track its ...

How to Develop an Enterprise Risk-Rating Approach

August 20, 2021

A financial institution that wants to identify its most critical risks must build a risk taxonomy and implement risk-rating scales. Quantitative and ...

How to Develop an Enterprise Risk Taxonomy

July 16, 2021

To better recognize, understand and mitigate all of their risks, effective financial institutions aspire to speak a common language that covers ...

When Developing a Risk Appetite, Don't Forget Untreatable Risks

June 18, 2021

If a risk cannot be mitigated, the potential failure must be acknowledged, assessed and, ultimately, accepted.

Risk Governance: The Importance of Acknowledging Risk

May 21, 2021

Action plan remediation is at the heart of potent risk governance. Management credibility can be reinforced with the recognition of issues - or ...

Crypto Risk Governance: Hazards and Opportunities

April 16, 2021

Clever asset innovation can happen seemingly overnight. Strong risk governance and regulation are needed to make it resilient.

How to Use Regulatory Change and ERM to Improve Business Performance Management

March 19, 2021

In the past, balancing capital and risk levels was seen strictly as a compliance requirement. But emerging capital adequacy regulations may provide ...

Geopolitics: Risks and Opportunities

February 19, 2021

Geopolitical events like COVID-19 are now a factor behind many other risks. How are geopolitics influencing risk types such as people risk and ...

Top 6 Banking and Risk Management Predictions for 2021

January 15, 2021

People risks, banking digitization, cyberattacks and AI are among the issues that will garner the most attention in the coming year.

How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Qualitative Risk Management

December 18, 2020

Large U.S. banks now have the opportunity to rethink risk frameworks to both meet regulatory requirements and propel business growth in an era of ...

How Artificial Intelligence Will Change the Way We Manage Compliance

November 13, 2020

What's the role of the modern chief compliance officer, and how can AI-driven data management and analytics improve oversight of compliance ?

Pandemic Challenges: How AI Will Change Risk and Compliance

October 16, 2020

Many companies now use data on risk assessments, loss events, regulations and industry standards to comply with regulatory requirements. But they're ...

Pandemic Challenges: How to Balance Resilience and Profitability

September 18, 2020

The unexpected shocks of COVID-19 - which have impacted everything from car production to food logistics to bank financing - have raised concerns ...

People Risk: A Post-Pandemic Management Framework

August 21, 2020

Extraordinary times call for new people risk management approaches. What are today's key employee behavioral and workforce composition risks, and how ...

The Unconventional Skills Chief Risk Officers are Now Seeking

July 17, 2020

In a world of civil unrest, geopolitical upheaval and coronavirus-driven economic shocks, risk managers with problem-solving capabilities are now in ...

Transformational Risk Leadership in Turbulent Times: How to Address Modern Problems

June 12, 2020

The Risk Governance Power Structure: How Does it Work?

May 15, 2020

Black swans, white swans, volatility and a collapsing economy are shining a bright light on risk governance and the ability of organizations to ...

Pondering Pandemics: Can We Get Better at Responding to Systemic Risks?

March 20, 2020

Chaotic events such as the coronavirus present CROs some unique challenges that range from risk measurement to operational resilience. In a ...

Repo Crisis Sheds Light on Short-Term Funding Markets

November 8, 2019

Through its recent repo mediation, the Federal Reserve may actually have created a moral hazard in the

Will Shadow Banking Cause the Next Financial Crisis?

July 19, 2019

Complicated by the recent entrance of Facebook, the opaque, poorly-regulated nonbank financing market could eventually threaten global financial ...

How to Better Understand and Manage Natural Disaster Risks

June 14, 2019

Extreme-weather events are on the rise, and financial institutions must account for them in their loan portfolios. What's the real impact of natural ...

How to Prevent Another Crisis: Mitigating the Risk of Nonbank Mortgage Lenders and Servicers

May 9, 2019

When the next major downturn occurs, will the industry be stable enough to survive? That could depend on risk management and regulatory improvements ...

Mortgage Risk: Why We Should Eliminate the Debt-to-Income Ratio Limit

April 18, 2019

The current DTI rule for qualified mortgages is too restrictive and should be abandoned in favor of more reasonable underwriting standards.

How to Reduce Risk from Credit Reporting Companies

March 15, 2019

U.S. credit reporting agencies are currently plagued by risk management deficiencies and inadequate regulatory oversight. What steps can be taken to ...

Strategic Risk Will Be Front and Center in 2019

January 18, 2019

Global economic stability is currently being threatened by geopolitical risk, climate change and the cyber revolution. What steps can risk mangers ...