Timothy F Geithner: The changing face of risk management Remarks by Mr Timothy F Geithner, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, before the Institute of International Bankers, New York, 9 June 2004 *  *  *  It is a pleasure to join you today for this meeting of the Institute of International Bankers. The financial institutions you represent play a major role in our financial system. The IIB has played an important part in shaping financial policy in the United States, by reminding us with force and persistence of the impact of our actions on the standards of fairness and equality of opportunity that we strive to maintain. The U.S. financial system has a number of features that help to make it attractive to participants from all around the world. The structure of our financial system is characterized by a diversity of channels for financial intermediation, with a relatively larger role for the capital markets and a smaller role for banks, than is true in most other major economies. And we have preserved, despite substantial consolidation, a system that comfortably accommodates the largest globally-active financial institutions side by side with a competitive and diverse array of regional and community banking organizations. We are very open to the presence of foreign financial institutions, and perhaps as important, have traditionally been very open to attracting non-U.S. financial talent to work in our markets.
We recognize this, even as we encourage firms to put in place stronger and more sophisticated systems more commensurate with the complexity of the risks they are taking. 2  BIS Review 36/2004  •  Comprehensive aggregation of credit exposure: The most sophisticated among large diversified financial institutions have well-developed systems for aggregating credit exposure, with a common methodology and results available relatively quickly, across the full range of transactions and business lines they engage in with a single entity or groups of entities with correlated risks. •  Stress testing and scenario analysis: Firms at the leading edge have moved well beyond reliance on “value-at-risk” complemented by stress tests of discrete shocks. They employ stress tests built around more exacting, forward-looking scenarios integrating large moves in a number of variables, more tailored to the risk profile of the firm and current market conditions, and the reactions of other market participants and counterparties. •  Counterparty credit risk management: The most sophisticated firms use much more careful and sophisticated approaches for measuring potential future exposure, and they analyze how exposures may respond in conditions of significant market stress. With respect to hedge fund exposure in particular, the leading firms employ comprehensive evaluation of the risk profile of the hedge fund to set credit thresholds and terms and a more disciplined approach to setting sufficiently high levels of initial margin. •  Measuring and managing interest rate risk: Leading institutions assess their exposure to interest rate risk in a comprehensive manner across the firm’s business lines.