The US subprime crisis has exposed deficiencies in risk management among financial institutions globally, according to a report by consultants TowerGroup.

The report – Multifunctional integration: the positive side of risk – says while 80% of CFOs are managing fiduciary and statutory requirements well, just 45% are steering enterprise risk effectively and only 40% have a good grasp of effective growth strategy.

The study finds a marked gap between the performance of risk-averse financial service providers and those it considers to have a holistic approach to managing risk and financials.

TowerGroup says well-integrated global firms with a cohesive approach to risk management are significantly outperforming their competitors in terms of cost reduction, enterprise risk, the monitoring of business performance, growth strategy and people development.