Managing through persistent volatility: the evolving role of the CRO and the need for organizational agility

Amid unprecedented levels of volatility and global uncertainty, cybersecurity has remained top of the list of near-term risks for banks around the world, according to the latest EY and Institute of International Finance (IIF) bank risk management survey.

The 13th edition of this joint report is based on survey data from 86 banks across 37 countries and highlights the issues chief risk officers (CROs) view as the most pressing for their organizations now, and in the future.

The joint survey report, entitled Managing through persistent volatility: the evolving role of the CRO and the need for organizational agility, finds that today’s CROs face increased complexity caused by overlapping and correlated risks, nearly all of which seem to be increasing in urgency. In the short term, nearly three out of four CROs identified cybersecurity risk as their top concern over the next 12 months (73%), in addition to two-thirds (66%) of respondents naming liquidity risk as the top financial risk for the next year.

When it comes to the top risk over the next five years, global banking CROs see climate and nature-related risk, the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence and industry disruption due to new technologies as the biggest priorities.