RMA releases final KRI report

PHILADELPHIA – It's been a busy August at the Risk Management Association (RMA), the US trade group. The RMA published its final report on the key risk indicator project it had been working on with UK-based consulting firm Risk Business in the middle of August, and also announced several related initiatives.

The final report, the KRI Study for Banking, contains analysis of the 1,809 KRIs that the participants of the study submitted, as well as the results of a voting exercise that was held to determine the usefulness, effectiveness and comparability. The study also explores the top indicators used in specific business lines, and how indictors are used by firms. The report also contains, for each of the 37 product groups covered, a listing of the top 20 indicators, based on subscriber usage and deemed effectiveness in monitoring, measuring and identifying risk.

Commenting on the report, Carole Carpentier, senior manager for operational risk at RBC Financial Group, the current chair organisation for KRI Services, said: "As a result of the KRI Study, financial services companies around the world can now 'speak KRI'fluently – the underlying framework has given us a common language, but more useful yet, the framework supports an integrated approach to enterprise operational risk management."

But the publication of the report also marks a transition, with the study officially being succeeded by KRI Services, a set of KRI-related services offered by the RMA and delivered by RiskBusiness. The next major objective for KRI Services is to launch KRI Benchmarking. Mike Finlay, managing director at RiskBusiness, anticipates the regional working groups will start benchmarking about 10 to 15 indicators each, with similar volumes for the product-specific working groups. Also, a new study focused on KRIs for the insurance industry was launched late in 2004, and now has 10 firms participating. OpRisk