RiskTech100® 2020

Welcome to RiskTech100^® 2020. Now in its fourteenth year, RiskTech100^® is still the most comprehensive independent study of the world’s major players in risk and compliance technology, globally acknowledged as the go-to place for clear, accurate analysis of the risk technology marketplace. Together with its accompanying awards, the RiskTech100^® ranking provides a valuable assessment and benchmarking tool for all participants in risk technology markets.

As in previous years, we have refined and updated our award categories to reflect the latest trends shaping the risk technology landscape, some of which we also highlight in this report. As we outlined in our Big Bets report at the start of the year, for risk technology users and providers, this might seem the best of times: offering new technologies, new ways of doing business, and new opportunities. But below the surface threats and risks, old and new, fester and rankle. The wave of cutting-edge statistical techniques sweeping finance, crested by AI and machine learning, threatens to leave a storm of costly confusion and misapplication in its wake. As new business structures appear, companies are regrouping and consolidating. And the perennial caveat with technology is that no matter how sophisticated your tools, mechanisms and defenses, they are available to everyone – good and bad.

At Chartis we believe that a successful risk technology strategy hinges on three vital factors. Firms need to be aware of new technologies, they need to understand where and how they can best be implemented, and they need teams across the business – CRO’s office, risk IT, engineers, quants and data scientists – to be familiar enough with the latest technologies to be able to implement them to greatest effect. A recurring theme in our research this year has been how knowledge and experience provide the vital glue holding everything together. And, of course, these can only come from proper engagement and a sober realization that understanding how solutions work is more important than simply acquiring them.  

Another important dynamic we have been tracking has been the push by regulators and standards-setting bodies to integrate risk into value, embedding the forward-looking principles of risk management into the finance industry. This is important for buyers and sellers of risk technology, with implications for how each party addresses the data aggregation, analytics, modeling and reporting requirements of standards such as IFRS 9, IFRS 17 and CECL. In the featured article in this year’s report, Chartis analyst Maryam Akram explores the potential impact of so-called ‘risk-aware’ finance, examining its benefits and challenges, winners and losers. I hope you find it an interesting read.

At Chartis we continue to expand our research and analysis – and our team – to reflect ongoing developments in the wider risk technology landscape. Our various quadrant reports and updates have covered areas as diverse as AI, model validation, IFRS 17 and cyber risk quantification. The quantification theme is one we have been exploring in other areas too – most notably operational risk. This has led us to split it this year from its traditional partner GRC, allowing us to recognize achievements in the area of operational risk quantification.

Alongside this research, we have also introduced a new ranking. Energy25, launched last month, recognizes how energy trading and risk management has grown in recent years, nourished by a boom in data and the more sophisticated analytics needed to crunch it. Our inaugural Energy25 awards, held on 16 October, were a huge success, and we plan to make them a regular feature of the Chartis research calendar. For those interested in the accompanying research report, you can access it for free on our website.

Energy25, and other planned initiatives (in areas such as cyber risk and statistical techniques for risk management), represent the latest steps in our strategy of defining, researching and understanding the ever-changing RiskTech market in all its complexity – research for which RiskTech100^® remains the cornerstone.

With that in mind, it only remains for me to congratulate the winners in RiskTech100^® 2020. On behalf of the whole Chartis team, we look forward to working with our clients in what promises to be another vibrant and dynamic year in RiskTech. 

Enjoy the report!

Rob Stubbs, Head of Research
 

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