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Home > Financial Risk Management Best Practice

Financial Risk Management Best Practice

Best Practice

Internationally renowned finance leaders, experts and educators distil and summarize the most important aspects of finance best practice. Each Best Practice essay has an Executive Summary for quick reference, outlining the main points. The Making It Happen feature illustrates practical applications, and where relevant authors have provided illustrative case studies and definitions.

  • A Holistic Approach to Business Risk Management
    by Terry Carroll
    After arguably the greatest credit crisis in history, it is unsurprising that lenders, borrowers, and investors alike have become preoccupied with financial risk. Its magnitude seems to have dwarfed all other business risk considerations. It can be hard to take a pragmatic view when the strictures in the financial markets may have put the corporation at risk, but the correct perspective is for all risk to be captured in a holistic...
  • A Total Balance Sheet Approach to Financial Risk
    by Terry Carroll
    We are living in some of the most volatile times in the history of the global financial markets. One of the reasons is exactly because they have become truly global. As banks seek to restore profitability, they may increase their offering of “treasury products” to customers. This article argues that these should be considered only in the context of a total balance sheet approach rather than transaction by transaction.
  • Dangers of Corporate Derivative Transactions
    by David Shimko
    It’s easy for managers to overlook risks. Financial risk managers may ignore nonfinancial risks. Business managers responsible for a particular line item (such as costs) may downplay risks unrelated to their particular line item. Firms often manage their risks compartmentally—for example: the treasury department for foreign exchange and interest rates; the procurement department for commodity purchases; and the insurance department for...
  • Integrated Corporate Financial Risk Policy
    by David Shimko
    Risk can be described as the threat of an adverse outcome. Many firms take the benchmark strategy of doing nothing (i.e., investing in Treasury Bills), and measure their risk in absolute terms relative to the strategy of doing nothing. Others measure their risk-taking behavior relative to what might be considered risky benchmarks. Mutual funds, for example, do not focus on the absolute risk of their portfolios; rather, they determine how far...
  • Introduction to Islamic Financial Risk Management Products
    by Qudeer Latif, Susi Crawford
    To consider the basics of Islamic financial risk management products it is helpful to summarize the Islamic principles and jurisprudence on which Islamic finance is based:Speculation: Contracts which involve speculation (maisir) are not permissible (haram) and are considered void. Islamic law does not prohibit general commercial speculation, but it does prohibit speculation which is akin to gambling, i.e. gaining something by chance rather than...
  • Managing Counterparty Credit Risk
    by David Shimko
    Counterparty risk is the risk to each party of a contract that the counterparty will not live up to its contractual obligations; it is otherwise known as default risk.Counterparty risk relates closely to performance risk. It arises whenever one entity depends on another to honor the terms of a contract. If a parts supplier fails to provide steering wheels to General Motors, GM will be damaged because of its inability to deliver complete cars....
  • Managing Interest Rate Risk
    by Will Spinney
    Almost all firms are exposed to interest rate risk, but it can manifest itself in different ways. A proper response to this risk can only come following a full understanding of the context of the firm and its strategy, along with a full evaluation of the risk. Firms should generate a well thought out key performance indicator (KPI) and then apply one or more of the many tools available in the market to transfer interest rate risk.
  • Managing Liquidity Risk in a Financial Institution: The Dangers of Short-Term Liabilities
    by David Shimko
    The assets and liabilities of a firm can be segregated into their short-term and long-term components. Short-term assets include cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities, and marketable inventories—i.e., any asset that can be converted in a short period of time to cash. Long-term assets include assets that cannot easily be converted to cash, such as plant and equipment, reputation, good will, and the present value of future growth...
  • Quantifying Corporate Financial Risk
    by David Shimko
    Consider the case of a company that has experienced six months of cash flows this year and wants to forecast the next six months. The usual way to do this is to predict a cash flow growth rate—expected, high, and low—and to base the analysis on these choices. A sample cash flow projection might be illustrated graphically in Figure 1.In reality, of course, several different cash flow patterns might emerge for the last six months of the year....
  • Risk Management of Islamic Finance Instruments
    by Andreas Jobst
    Since only interest-free forms of finance are considered permissible in Islamic finance, financial relationships between financiers and borrowers are not governed by capital-based investment gains but by shared business risk (and returns) in lawful activities (halal). Any financial transaction under Islamic law implies direct participation in performance of the asset, which constitutes entrepreneurial investment that conveys clearly identifiable...
  • To Hedge or Not to Hedge
    by Steve Robinson
    Business has become increasingly international, and companies cannot ignore the impact of currency changes on cash flows, profitability, and their asset and liability position. No company is wholly immune—the cash received from exporting is affected by the relationship between the currency used by the customer to pay and the currency in which the cost of providing the product or service is denominated.Many commodity prices have been volatile,...

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