The COVID-19 Crisis: Recalibrating Risk and Compliance Frameworks for US Banks

With new risks likely to emerge, banks to rethink risk and compliance strategy

The impact of COVID-19 on US banks will be significant and the risk and compliance functions will need to come up with a measured response to contain it. The pandemic will potentially introduce new risks and likely uncover systemic weaknesses in the US financial services systems. With the crisis having varying degrees of impact on different types of risk such as credit, market, liquidity, operational, interest rate, financial crime, and conduct risk, US banks will need to assess the impact on each risk type and initiate steps to address it.

To counter the impact of COVID-19 on risk and compliance, US banks will need to

• Make provisions to absorb the loss that may arise from the pandemic
• Factor in COVID-19 impact into stress tests and capital management processes
• Embed control measures into risk management frameworks to infuse resilience
• Adapt business strategies to manage new risks introduced by the pandemic

Banks that initiate the above steps will be able to withstand the shocks from the crisis and emerge stronger in the post COVID-19 era.