RISK-MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY

A new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that while financial firms are moving towards a more holistic approach to risk management, they are still struggling with inadequate data gathering and measurement tools. The survey found that 75 percent of respondents now articulate risk appetite at the group level and half of the respondents had made senior appointments to oversee enterprise-wide risk. In addition, more than half of respondents had revamped policies for the authorization or risk-taking to ensure alignment with the organization's strategic objectives. But about half of respondents reported they remain dissatisfied with the measurement tools at their disposal. In addition, 85 percent of respondents view aggregation of data across business lines as an area for improvement.

Townsend Analytics has introduced new features to its RealTick 7.6 platform to minimize risk. RealTick now supports suitability rules to restrict traders from executing trades when violating certain set rules. Rules can be placed on transaction size and cost, trade frequency, price range, single-item portfolio balancing and portfolio balancing based on security type. A staged orders feature has also been introduced to help prevent errors when entering trades. The staged order enforces size, side and symbol to traders can't over-execute or execute on the wrong side of the market.