Global Risk Institute is a preeminent source of ideas on the management of emerging risks and trends for financial services organizations
15 April 2019 | Climate Change and Environmental Risks
The climate is changing, but there is substantial uncertainty around the exact climate trajectory and as well as the economic consequences of climate change. As a result, investors around the world have a huge demand for hedging themselves against the realizations of climate risk.
1 April 2019 | Technology Innovations
From a financial institution’s perspective, AI offers a wide range of potential benefits, but one must ensure that the implementation of this technology is both prudent and ethical. To aid in the understanding of how this can be achieved, this report will introduce AI and detail issues of bias, interpretability, and data security and privacy as they relate to the ethical use of AI algorithms by financial institutions.
1 April 2019 | Geopolitical
For the Canadian financial services industry, the trade war presents complex and ambiguous risks. Punitive tariffs and general market uncertainty induce volatility, disrupt supply chains, and disincentivize new investment in the short-term. The dispute also creates a more protracted challenge in that it holds the potential to shape the future political relationship between the U.S. and China and thus the global economic system over the long-term
21 March 2019 | Technology Innovations
In this paper, we discuss Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), one of the most common and complex Machine Learning tools. After a non-technical introduction to ANNs, we examine the risks associated with the application of this algorithm to financial data.
14 March 2019 | Geopolitical
In 2019, some of the largest emerging economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America could undergo disruptive political changes, while populist and anti-establishment parties are set to expand their reach in the European Union. This article provides a preliminary assessment of the policy implications of these elections and the risks for global financial institutions.
19 February 2019 | Technology Innovations
Public-key cryptography, which underpins the security of most of the tools we rely on today including cloud computing, payment systems, the internet, and IoT, are all susceptible to being broken by quantum computers in the not-so-distant future.
4 February 2019 | Geopolitical
This “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) promises to link China to both neighbouring and distant regions along its southern and western frontiers through a mass infrastructure investment project, including roads, rail lines, ports, energy pipelines and digital networks. With a sum total of promised investments reaching $1 trillion (estimates vary), the BRI may be the most ambitious scheme of its kind ever attempted – 7 to 8 times larger than the $140 billion Marshall Plan that funded the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War – and could take decades to fully complete.
4 February 2019 | National Pension Hub
Pension plan sponsors are aware of one longevity risk in their plans – the risk that plan members live longer than assumed. There are steps that they have taken to mitigate this risk. Pension liabilities have been valued anticipating future increases in longevity, and some longevity exposure has been transferred to insurance companies through annuity purchases or pension “buy-ins”.
24 January 2019 | Impact & Use of Leverage
This article discusses use of leverage in the context of defined benefit pension plan investment. It defines the term leverage, discusses how leverage creates value using a simple one-period model and stylized market assumptions, examines risks associated with using leverage and reviews methods and best practices to mitigate and manage these risks.
16 January 2019 | Cyber security and Fraud
This publication provides an extension of our work on estimating the real-world effort it will take for a quantum computer to compromise symmetric cryptographic functions at the foundation of protecting our ICT infrastructure.
