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The global credit crunch shows just how much the world's financial services firms need to raise their game when it comes to risk management, says Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute for International Finance. By Ellen Davis

For many firms, it is still too early to do a post-event analysis of the credit crunch. "We all know that it is very hard to distil lessons learned when you're still struggling to catch your breath," says Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute for International Finance (IIF), based in Washington, DC. "I use the analogy of someone who is trying to swim across the deep part of a lake and is suddenly overtaken by a storm – it's difficult to figure out how you got into such deep water