Simple Tools and Techniques for Enterprise Risk Management
Box 4.4 SIFMA drivers of systemic risk
Driver of systemic risk SIFMA measure of risk
Size Measured by the size of the balance sheet of the financial firm.
Interconnectedness Generally measured by consideration of counterparty risks related to
a financial institution’s activities. Knowledge of the
interconnectedness of a financial institution could assist in
determining how many additional failures could be caused by the
failure of an individual firm.
Liquidity Measured by a financial institution’s available funds, at a reasonable
cost, to meet potential demands from both fund providers and
borrowers.
Concentration Measured, for instance, by the number of financial institutions that
have exposures to a single counterparty, industry or product. Risk
concentrations can take multiple forms including exposures to
individual counterparties, groups of individual counterparties and
specific products or sectors.
Correlation Measured by the correlation of risk exposures through an
understanding of the types of risk, their correlations and
concentrations.
Tight coupling Measured, for instance, by mechanistic processes. The SIFMA study
makes reference to the paper by Richard Bookstaber entitled “The
Myth of Non-correlation” published in the Institutional Investor,
September 2007. He talks about the inability to intervene between
the stages of tightly coupled processes, and if things were going
wrong it was not possible to quickly stop the process for a
committee to debate the issues.
Herding behaviour Measured by individuals within a group performing activities without
consideration of the longer-term consequences, such as investor
representatives “following trends set by other organisations until
contrary evidence cannot be ignored any longer”. An example is
given of the investment of “significant funds in securities backed
by subprime mortgages”.
Crowded trades Measured by the occurrence of “a large number of financial
institutions following similar trading strategies and execut[ing]
comparable trades”. The study also states: “If a number of
financial institutions adopt like investment strategies the level of
risk is increased as additional assets may be invested in the same
underlying risk.”
Leverage Measured by assessing firms that are vulnerable from being highly
leveraged (extent of the use of borrowed funds) and committed to
extensive lending without a sufficient cushion of capital. Excessive
debt may force an organisation to cut investment and renegotiate
with creditors and in severe cases commit credit default. The study
states: “A financially distressed firm’s default can lead to the
distress of its lenders, and subsequently impact on other firms, thus
potentially increasing the build-up of systemic risk across thefinancial system.”