Toronto urged to create global institute for risk management

The Toronto Financial Services Working Group (TFSWG) has recommended the establishment of a global institute for integrative risk management as part of a four-pillar strategy for turning the Toronto region into one of North America’s top five to seven financial centres.
Commissioned by the TFSWG, The Boston Consulting Group published its Toronto Region Financial Services Strategy in November 2009. The strategy makes a number of recommendations for raising Toronto’s global financial competitiveness, including “building leading hubs” in the area of financial services.
Taken together, the strategy says its “four priority opportunities,” including a global institute for risk management, would have the potential to create between 25,000 and 40,000 jobs, as well as generate between $4 billion and $5 billion in annual GDP over a five-year time horizon.
The opportunity to create a global institute for risk management comes at a time when the financial crisis has highlighted the need for improved risk management, the strategy says. 
“The financial crisis has raised to the surface a critical need to re-evaluate how risk is recognized, analysed and managed,” the strategy says. “The establishment of new global regulatory standards and processes has been called for.
“Aside from this new regulatory function, governments, risk experts and industry practitioners alike see the need for ongoing international dialogue and collaboration on forward-looking thinking and research, education and dissemination of best practices and leading-edge ideas.
“Canada and the Toronto Region in particular are distinctly well-suited to act as a location for a global Institute for Integrative Risk Management as a centre of this activity.”
The strategy says the focus of the new structure would be to provide integrative research and education across multiple risk management disciplines (including but not limited to regulation, governance, actuarial science, asset and liability management, leadership behaviour and accountability).
“An independent institute with a virtual core in Toronto is recommended, governed and managed by a joint board of directors from industry, academic institutions and regulators,” the strategy says.