He added, “Therefore, the boards of directors and senior management of financial institutions are reexamining their approaches to risk management, including their risk frameworks, governance and methodologies.”

The survey found that about 90 percent of institutions had a defined risk governance model and approach, and 78 percent reported their board of directors had approved their risk management policy or ERM framework.

With financial regulators around the world focusing on pay and bonus practices, and new rules being proposed in the U.S., the survey found that 37 percent of financial institutions reported they had completely or substantially incorporated risk management considerations into their overall performance goals and compensation decisions.

Insurance institutions said they use a variety of techniques to assess insurance risk, the survey found. About 60 percent cited as either a primary or secondary methodology: stress testing, value at risk, economic capital and dynamic financial analysis.

Institutions said they use a variety of organizational structures to oversee insurance risks, with no function being named by more than 39 percent of institutions for any risk type. For pricing risk, for example, 37 percent said the primary responsibility was placed with actuarial; 26 percent said product development; and lesser percentages cited other areas, the study found.

For concentration risk, 39 percent named ERM, while 35 percent cited actuarial. The remainder said they placed the responsibility in other functions.

Deloitte said that based on its risk management surveys, progress has been made in implementing operational risk methodologies since 2008, with 62 percent of executives rating their risk assessments and 54 percent rating their internal loss event data as extremely or very well developed—compared to about 40 percent for each two years ago.

For key risk indicators, 30 percent of executives considered them to be well developed in 2010 compared with only 12 percent in 2008, according to the study.

Other major findings in the survey:

• Not only is the chief risk officer role more prevalent at financial institutions, the CRO is reporting to higher levels in the organization. The survey found that 86 percent of institutions had a CRO in place, up from 73 percent in 2008. Eighty-five percent reported to the board level, CEO (or both).
• More institutions have adopted enterprise risk management (ERM) programs―79 percent of institutions reported having a program or equivalent in place or in progress, an increase from 59 percent in 2008.
• The top-rated risk management technology challenge was identified as integrating risk data across the organization.
• More than 80 percent of institutions experienced significant impacts from regulatory changes in the countries where they operate. These impacts included the need to maintain higher capital levels and the need to maintain higher liquidity ratios.