Although the financial crisis has highlighted the importance of good risk management to senior management, op risk managers are still finding it difficult to secure buy-in and support from their top executives. Regulators are also worried about the lack of experienced op risk personnel at firms, which has been made apparent in the contradiction between what firms say they are doing in relation to operational risk management and what they are doing in practice.

The large banking groups around the world have already scooped up the best talent in the operational risk space, particularly in the UK, where many of the brightest talents have been lured to HSBC as is ramps up its op risk programme.

Recently Algorithimics, the leading provider of risk solutions was awarded a patent for its operational risk capital modelling framework. This framework provides a method for aggregating loss estimates, using a combination of the actuarial technique of estimating frequency and severity separately, and combining these using Monte-Carlo simulation to produce an overall estimate. By performing these calculations for the individual business lines and risk types, and then combining these estimates, clients can arrive at a "bottom-up" estimate for their overall risk exposure.