Risk data needs to be enterprise-wide and tied in to all aspects of customer, commercial, financial and operational data at the lowest level of detail, to enable necessary statistical analysis to be undertaken. Risk data is not a minimalist by-product of an attempt to enable calculation of capital for regulatory requirements, but is the central enabling core of an organisation’s ability to achieve competitive advantage through dynamic analysis and management of its own risk portfolios.

This paper aims to identify the principal sources of complexity around, principally, credit risk exposures. Operational Risk, which is also captured for capital allocation purposes, for the first time under Basel II, has its own data complexity attributes which need to be addressed by each financial institution.