Rebuilding Operational Risk Management Capabilities: Lessons Learned from COVID-19

Globally, COVID-19 has significantly impacted many different organizations and people. From the banks' perspective, this pandemic has affected banks' corporate and retail customers. Also, banks had to adjust to distributed workforce model. This paper analyses the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be effectively used to rebuild banks' Operational Risk Management capabilities. The present study used the survey research methodology, which includes structured questionnaires completed by senior banking professionals to analyze the learnings from COVID-19 and understand the distributed workforce model and remote working effectiveness. Findings: The Pandemic accelerated the pace of digital transformation. The lockdown imposed due to the pandemic led to employees working remotely, which has been effective because of enhanced digital capabilities. However, enhanced monitoring is required to prevent data-related issues, and action needs to be taken to address challenges faced in having a remote distributed workforce model, like negative impact on on-the-job learning, data-related risks, and employee wellbeing. COVID-19 is an unprecedented event that could not have been predicted in any scenario analysis. This crisis has highlighted various systemic drawbacks that need to be addressed. Banks can apply the lesson learned from this Pandemic to become more robust in the future.