The COVID-19 pandemic has enveloped the world within weeks, and continues to put severe strain on people and businesses in Hong Kong. The banking industry in particular is impacted by volatile market conditions, deteriorating credit quality and business continuity challenges among other things. The unexpected crisis also raises questions around banks’ existing risk management frameworks in terms of their effectiveness and agility.

These are unprecedented times for CROs, risk functions and the business and key decision makers need to navigate their organisation through unchartered waters in these turbulent times. In our second COVID-related risk management paper, KPMG experts compiled some known and expected implications for the core financial risk types. These four risks have been materially impacted under the crisis and have direct implications for banks’ capital management.

We set out some key action points to be considered by banks – both in the short term to support crisis management, but also in the medium- to long-term to support the way forward.