As Risk Management Grows, So Does IT

As evidenced by the s economic crisis, there hasn't been much substance behind risk management in the financial sector in recent years. Well, change is coming. A recent capital markets technology survey from Aite Group highlights the potential role engineers will have in this increasingly important area. According to InformationWeek:

Risk management ranks near the top of Aite Group's technology survey every year, but it clearly has been more talk than walk. Expect that to change in 2009. Risk managers may even see their technology budgets increased. Smart risk managers will ask hard questions about the scope and quality of the data being fed into their shiny new systems.

The bold face is mine.

What role will engineers play? For one thing, there'll be a need to develop better and faster systems, since the current process is no longer efficient for effective risk management:

The same engineers involved in creating high-performance trading infrastructures will become involved in efforts to improve risk management. Complex event processing (CEP) engines, computational math libraries, in-memory databases and other tools of the electronic trading environment have demonstrated potential for risk management.

Don't expect the focus on risk management to be a fad. It will be crucial to rebuilding the trust we've lost in the financial industry. IT workers should grab this opportunity. Carpe Diem.