Ready for anything?

As the financial crisis deepens, firms must look to protect themselves from the increased strains on their infrastructure. OpRisk & Compliance outlines the top 10 challenges readers and their firms will face in 2009. By David Benyon, with additional reporting by Ellen Davis

For those who have not spent the past year on sabbatical to Krypton, it is obvious that Earth is now in the grip of a financial crisis. Who could have foretold that a single Societe Generale equities trader could lose $7 billion; that the liquidity lifeblood of global credit would freeze solid; that three of the big five investment banks on Wall Street and dozens more across the globe would succumb; that a mortgage meltdown would force a US government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; or