Intelligent risk management

Risk measurement and management has become an essential tool in the modern business environment, especially considering the myriad compliance issues faced due to regulations imposed by government.

Effective risk management may seem to be a daunting task, but with the right solution in place, it does not have to be an expensive and overwhelming undertaking, nor do businesses need to rip out and replace their existing systems.

SAS Risk Intelligence is a modular solution that enables customers to select the capabilities from SAS's comprehensive portfolio of risk and compliance offerings that meet their individual needs. The system helps customers to leverage their existing technology while at the same time improving risk measurement and management capacity.

Says Andr'e Zitzke, Solutions Specialist for SAS South Africa: "Many people are put off by the misconception that a risk management system needs to be an expensive solution that replaces any or all existing technology. SAS Risk Intelligence integrates into your existing systems, and it is completely modular, meaning that customers can select the components they need to suit their individual needs."

SAS Risk Intelligence delivers cost-effective risk measurement and management solutions, with components that are easy to use, can be integrated into existing arrangements, and support Basel II requirements. The system provides solutions for market risk, credit risk, internal risk ratings and operational risk.

A consistent, forward-looking view of risk across an enterprise is provided from a central risk repository and a portfolio of risk analytic and reporting capabilities, ensuring that a comprehensive, 360-degree view of an organisation's risk activities is always available, from data integration to final risk reporting.

Adds Zitzke: "Based on industry best practices, SAS Risk Intelligence incorporates a number of project accelerators, increasing the turn around time of risk projects and delivering meaningful results faster. The accelerators include logical and physical data models, predefined analytics for market and credit risk assessment, report templates and a business intelligence framework that supports ad hoc analysis and reporting."

The easy to use system makes the jobs of risk analysts and managers so much simpler. A graphical user interface and the use of business terms instead of obscure codes and data simplifies data access, leading to accelerated data acquisition, modelling, risk measurement and reporting.

SAS Risk Intelligence produces regulatory and non-regulatory risk measures and supports data-driven risk management solutions. The system also incorporates easily understandable process flows that turn data integration, risk analytics and risk reporting into well documented processes for auditors, management and regulatory reporting.

Zitzke concludes: "The SAS Risk Intelligence solution makes compliance just that much easier to deal with, and the modular format and cost-effectiveness has been a resounding success - SAS recently signed its 100th Basel II customer in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region."