July 29, 2013 - Chief risk officers at banks and other financial institutions believe their IT systems and infrastructure present a significant problem, according to a Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu survey.

Ever growing regulatory scrutiny has seen financial institutions increase their focus and spending on risk management, the poll of 86 CROs from banks, insurers, and asset managers shows.

Nearly two thirds of respondents report an increase in spending on risk management and compliance. This spending has contributed to confidence, with three quarters claiming that they are at least very effective at risk management overall.

Yet firms are less sure in their technology, with just 25% rating their risk management IT systems as extremely or very effective in data management and maintenance, process architecture and workflow logic or data governance. Meanwhile, 40% are concerned about the capabilities of their firm on the management of risk data.

Less than half of large institutions consider their operational risk technology platform to be extremely or very capable. Only a similar percentage considers their organisation's operational risk technology capabilities as very capable in any area, revealing little progress since a similar 2010 survey.

Smaller institutions - those with less than $10 billion of assets - are particularly concerned about their technology systems. While 48% of large firms think that their platform for operational risk capital calculations is extremely or very capable, only 15% of small institutions do.