Banking risk in motion: stay safe, keep pace, grow

Banks are operating in a world where opportunity and threat increasingly blur, where risks can materialise at pace with greater connectivity and impact markets, technology and regulation. PwC’s Global Banking Risk Study 2025 shows that risk functions are shifting decisively from static oversight to dynamic navigation, helping leaders stay safe, keep pace, and drive growth. Risk leaders are accelerating transformation to match a more complex, faster‑moving landscape, providing earlier, data‑driven insights and enabling leaders to act with confidence.

The study highlights how interdependence across cyber, digital transformation, capital pressures, and market volatility is redefining risk. Traditional risk cycles are too slow for today’s decision tempo. Boards and executives now expect risk functions to generate forward‑looking insight, deliver clarity amid ambiguity, and instil confidence — not simply to challenge after the fact.

Leading banks are responding in four ways:

1. Future‑proofing risk: targeting more than 50% automation of processes within five years, redesigning assurance models, and embedding real‑time monitoring to keep pace with business speed.
2. Embracing AI‑enabled risk management: using AI, digital twins, and advanced scenario analysis to move from manual, document‑heavy processes to intelligent, trigger‑based oversight. These tools enable earlier detection, more consistent decisions and more resilient operations.
3. Re‑architecting risk operating models: building central utilities for assurance and reporting, establishing business‑aligned chief risk officer (CRO) teams, and strengthening enterprise‑wide capabilities to scan the horizon and connect risks end‑to‑end.
4. Reshaping risk leadership and the workforce: CROs are taking on broader strategic influence, preparing hybrid human-agent teams, and developing talent with both digital fluency and the soft skills required for judgement in uncertain environments. The result is a function designed not for preservation, but for operating in motion — agile, simplified, intelligence‑led, and aligned to value creation.

The 2025 findings underscore a pivotal moment for banking risk functions worldwide. The sector is moving beyond incremental improvement toward genuine reinvention, driven by accelerating disruption, rising expectations and the transformative potential of AI. Organisations that embrace this shift — simplifying operating models, strengthening non‑financial risk foundations, and equipping leaders and teams for an intelligence‑led future — will be best positioned to navigate uncertainty and capture new opportunities.