The risk-management function could also work with finance and strategy to optimize the bank’s
balance sheet under all regulatory constraints. Some banks already employ this technique.
They use a structured process that aligns the balance-sheet data (if needed, it utilizes the most
important balance sheets for international groups) and then agrees on economic scenarios,
strategic assumptions (e.g., how much the bank would be prepared to increase or shrink a
loan portfolio), and regulatory assumptions. Finally, the process has an optimization engine
make suggestions for an optimized balance sheet. Typically, this yields suggestions for ROE
improvements of 50–400 basis points, where the adjustments in the range of 50–150 basis
points are typically moderate. Exhibit 8 provides an example of such an optimization.