More than 80% of risk professionals view risk technology (risktech) innovation as imperative to their banks’ competitive edge, with tech spend being directed towards effectiveness rather than cost reduction. That’s according to a new survey and white paper, “Sharpening risktech’s cutting edge: Maximising value from risktech investment”, published by Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Regulatory Reporting (FRR) business in association with Risk.net.
Risk.net interviewed more than 80 senior risk and technology professionals at leading banks globally and found respondents to be distinctly lukewarm in their assessment of existing risktech systems.
Around 61% described the overall performance of their systems as fair, poor or very poor, citing a lack of clear business objectives and internal wranglings over project priorities and scope as the two main barriers to effective risktech investment. Notably, 76% of respondents are planning upgrades in the next two years, with cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence applications being the two most likely directions for developing risktech, while blockchain and big data are seen as longer‑term opportunities. Data analytics and management, however, are also seen as being in need of immediate investment.