Special
Why better climate data doesn’t always mean better decision-making
Risk Benchmarking research finds model and systems integration challenges almost as limiting to effective climate risk management
‘The models are not bloody wrong’: a storm in climate risk
Risk Benchmarking: Risk.net’s latest benchmarking exercise shows banks confronting decades-long exposures, while grappling with political headwinds, limited resources and data gaps
Climate Risk Benchmarking: explore the data
Risk Benchmarking: View interactive charts from Risk.net’s 43-bank study, covering climate governance, physical and transition risks, stress-testing, technology, and regulation
Many banks see obstacles to options-based IRRBB hedging
Liquidity, accounting treatment and culture seen as impediments to wider use of swaptions, caps and floors
ALM has no formal role in capital planning at a third of banks
Risk Benchmarking study finds banks split three ways on policy mandates, with G-Sibs as likely as small regionals to assign ALM formal responsibility
Banks hold 73% of liquidity buffer in cash and Level 1 assets, on average
Largest lenders hold highest share of central bank reserves in buffer, latest analysis shows
EVE and NII dominate IRRBB limit-setting
ALM Benchmarking study finds majority of banks relying on hard risk limits, and a minority supplementing with early-warning indicators
Third of banks run ALM with five or fewer staff
Across 46 firms, asset-liability management is usually housed in treasury, but formal remits and staffing allocations differ sharply
Top 10 investment risks for 2026
AI, strained governments, inflated private assets: risky bets have become hard to avoid
One in five banks targets a 30-day liquidity survival horizon
ALM Benchmarking research finds wide divergence in liquidity risk appetites, even among large lenders
Bank ALM tech still dominated by manual workflows
Batch processing and Excel files still pervade, with only one in four lenders planning tech upgrades
Many banks ignore spectre of SVB in liquidity stress tests
In ALM Benchmarking exercise, majority of banks have no internal tests focusing on stress horizons of less than 30 days
ALM Benchmarking: explore the data
View interactive charts from Risk.net’s 46-bank study, covering ALM governance, balance-sheet strategy, stress-testing, technology and regulation
Staff, survival days, models – where banks split on ALM
Liquidity and rate risks are as old as banking; but the 46 banks in our benchmarking study have different ways to manage them
Squashing CVA still dominates XVA desks’ priorities
Dealers favour options-based strategies to manage charges; some explore contingent CDSs amid rising exposures
XVA desks prioritise core tech upgrades over AI
Vendor upgrades, cloud-native rebuilds and sensitivities tooling dominate 2026 budget road maps
XVA desks target capital in optimisation runs
US regulatory uncertainty leaves banks cautious on investing in new optimisation tools, Risk Benchmarking study finds
Almost two-thirds of banks now run XVAs on cloud
Risk Benchmarking study finds a majority of big dealers tapping cloud capacity, some exclusively, with others migrating
Most banks stick to tried-and-trusted XVA models
Black Scholes- and Heath-Jarrow-Morton-based approaches dominate, with some exploring Copulas for wrong-way risk, post-Archegos
XVA Benchmarking: explore the data
Take a deep dive into the findings of our 30-bank study, with interactive charts covering XVA optimisation, regulation and tech stacks
Half of European banks already embed FRTB into XVA pricing
US and rest of world lag Europe in incorporation of Basel capital rules into XVA calculations, Risk Benchmarking analysis shows