Enterprise Risk Management

Enterprise Risk Management

Financial institutions exists to provide value for their stakeholders. However, financial market volatility creates uncertainty, challenging management to ensure that the market volatility and all the associated loss sources are identified, measured, and aggregated while following the risk appetite guidelines from the Board of Directors. These financial institutions strive to grow stakeholder value within the prescribed guidelines, policies and procedures developed for interaction with different markets.

Uncertainty Demands Robust Enterprise Risk Management

Uncertainty presents both risk and opportunity, with the potential to erode or enhance value. Enterprise risk management enables management to effectively deal with uncertainty and associated risk and opportunity, enhancing the capacity to build value. Value is maximized when management sets strategy and objectives to strike an optimal balance between growth and return goals and related risks while efficiently and effectively deploying resources in pursuit of the entity’s objectives. Enterprise risk management encompasses:

  • Aligning risk appetite and strategy - Management considers the entity's risk appetite in evaluating strategic alternatives, setting related objectives, and developing mechanisms to manage related risks.
  • Enhancing risk response decisions - Enterprise risk management provides the rigor to identify and select among alternative risk responses - risk avoidance, reduction, sharing, and acceptance.
  • Reducing operational surprises and losses - Entities enhance their capabilities to identify potential events and establish responses, reducing surprises and associated costs or losses.
  • Identifying and managing multiple and cross-enterprise risks - Every enterprise faces a myriad of risks affecting different parts of the organization. Enterprise risk management facilitates effective responses to the interrelated impacts and integrated responses to multiple risks.
  • Seizing opportunities - By considering a full range of potential events, management is positioned to identify and proactively realize opportunities.
  • Improving deployment of capital - Obtaining robust risk information allows management to effectively assess overall capital needs and enhance capital allocation. These capabilities inherent in enterprise risk management help management achieve the entity's performance and profitability targets and prevent loss of resources. Enterprise risk management helps ensure effective reporting and compliance with laws and regulations, and helps avoid damage to the entity's reputation and associated consequences. Enterprise risk management helps an entity get to where it wants to go and avoid pitfalls and surprises along the way.