Asia Pacific Risk Management Focus on Better Data Stewards
Financial Insights, an IDC company, has released its annual report identifying the top 10 IT initiatives that will be of strategic importance for risk management in Asia Pacific during 2008. The report, entitled ‘Asia/Pacific Risk 2008 Top 10 Strategic Initiatives: Striking an Optimal Balance between Risk and Reward’, incorporates opinions from both their regional analyst teams and industry practitioners, and highlights initiatives that would help financial institutions balance their trajectory of growth with managing the risk profile for 2008. The initiatives, covering the entire financial services industry, from banks to insurers to capital market institutions, may not necessarily correlate to those of greatest investment spend, but focusing on these issues will position financial institutions better to incorporate robust risk management frameworks into their businesses. The first three of the top 10 initiatives are data systems improvements, focus on Basel II and managing operational risk. Basel II remains at the forefront as banks progress toward fine-tuning their implementations in preparation for looming datelines. Meanwhile, efficient operational risk management is fundamental to sound business operations. Organisations continue to focus on managing their operational risk profiles, with special attention on minimising business continuity risk and information security incidences, and on scaling up on the prevention and detection of internal fraud.