Latest in Risk Management Trends: What Will We See in the Future?

The Future Is Here

Risk management seems to be on the minds of everyone these days, especially with what the banking industry has experienced over recent years. With such a history, there is no surprise that risk management is changing, and the risks involved are rising. In order to help you understand these changes, here are some of the emerging trends in risk management.

Liquidity Risk Overview

First of all, liquidity risk management has taken the forefront in risk management plans. Liquidity issues can especially be seen within the

technology and financial parts of most businesses. Within liquidity risk, there are three main areas:

• Funding
• Market
• Counter-party driven

Risks of the Present and Future

Funding Risks - Funding risk means that your business does not have enough cash to run a project or the business. This is a huge worry for anyone within risk management. If you don’t have enough funds, you cannot do something as small as finish a project or, on a larger scale, even stay in business. Funding liquidity risk can affect how well your organization operates. It has definitely become a major risk management priority within any risk management plan.

Market Risks - Market risk usually comes in the form of items within a portfolio, items that can’t ever be sold, or products that can’t be sold in the market for their stated worth. For example, the housing market would fall under this emerging risk management trend. Banks have had houses in their portfolios that were supposed to be a worth a certain amount. When the market crashed, those houses lost their value and could not be sold for the bank’s investment. Consequently, within the housing crisis, if these houses did sell, they sold for a lower market-value and investment price.

The market affected the valuations of these assets. Now, banks must come up with risk management plans to deal with this crisis in case the market changes in the future. This may mean that banks, traders, and money managers may have to avoid risks like this altogether. This is something that they will have to consider in their emerging change management plans.

Counter-party Risks - Counter-party risk can almost be considered consumer-driven in many cases. For example, if your client stops paying you for something that he’s bought, he has not fulfilled his obligations to you. To continue with the housing market example, people who stopped paying their mortgage became a counter-party liquidity risk. After the real-estate crash companies gave thought to the types of risk management plan that could be put in place to deal with people or companies who default on loans, credit card debt, and other financial obligations.

With all the recent crisis, and the recovery still dragging, companies have had to really consider these emerging risk management trends and implement risk policies. That practice has to become part of their overall business strategy in order to thrive in the new and more challenging environments of today.