BoE Survey Finds Cyber-Attacks to be Most Cited Risk
The Bank of England (BoE) published the results of the systemic risk survey for the second half of 2021. This usually biannual survey was paused amid pandemic and this is the first survey since then. The survey participants included UK banks and building societies, large foreign banks, asset managers, hedge funds, insurers, pension funds, large non-financial companies, and central counterparties. The survey revealed that confidence in the stability of the UK financial system has increased over the past six months and cyber-attacks as the most cited risk to the financial system and also the most challenging for firms to manage.
The survey revealed that the perceived probabilities of a high-impact event in the UK financial system over the short and medium term have decreased. The percentage of respondents judging the probability of such an event over the short term to be high or very high decreased significantly while the percentage of those judging the probability to be high or very high over the medium term decreased from 64% to 52%. In the category of the most challenging risks to manage as a firm, cyber-attack was the most cited response (58% of respondents), followed by pandemic risk (40%), geopolitical risk (32%), operational risk including risks related to climate change (28%), UK political risk (25%), inflation risk (23%), and risks around regulation/taxes (16%). Among the sources of risk to the UK financial system and the most probable risks to materialize categories, cyber-attack was again the most cited risk.
Related Link: Survey Results
Keywords: Europe, UK, Banking, Systemic Risk, COVID-19, Systemic Risk Survey, Cyber Risk, Climate Change Risk, Operational Risk, Pandemic Risk, BoE
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